The Vimy Memorial

The Figure of Canada (a.k.a. Sorrow), by Walter S. Allward. Canadian National Vimy Memorial.

Of all the places I planned on visiting this year, the Vimy Memorial is the site for which I had the highest expectations. After seeing the emotional Easter Monday broadcast on the CBC last year commemorating the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, I had it in my mind that it might be the most beautiful (and moving) memorial in the world. Yes, including pyramids, archs, and the Taj. It is a memorial to all those who fought the battles of the Great War; and as some suggest - a monument to the moment in time when Canada became a nation.
So I headed out to Arras, France to visit this place I had grown fond of from afar. It did not disappoint. It IS the most beautiful memorial I have ever seen. In the photos below, I try to capture a bit of the experience, hoping that someday you will visit the site. Ever Canadian must, everyone else should.


The Flemish town of Arras, France is where you will find a place to stay closest to the momument. As you can see, it is beautiful. Less than one hour on the TGV from Paris Gare du Nord (175km)


The land surrounding the monument has been planted with species to evoke the Canada landscape.


These re-constructed trenches are one of the first things you see when on the tour of the underground tunnels. They may not be inhabited with the foul stench of death and rats that the real trenches were riddled with, but they do give you some idea of just how close they were to the enemy.


The surreal landscape all around the site has been sculpted by mortar shelling and land mines.


Much of the surrounding area is still full of land mines, so you have to stay within the prescribed safe zones. Sheep belonging to a local farmer, too light to set off the mines, are used to keep the grass trimmed.




We're getting there. It is a long, and at times, an emotional walk.




This is, for lack of a better term, the 'back' of the memorial.


This is the front, with Canada standing by herself on the edge.


Sympathy of Canadians for the Helpless


I love how his foot breaks the implicit frame here.


Looking up.


A perfect end to the day. Getting a drive back to Arras from Georges who has been driving Canadians to and from the site for years. He is a fixture at the site, and a great friend to all those who work there. In this picture, taken at the graveyard for German soldiers, he is showing a fellow Canadian the map of the area.

Moo.com, cool handbags, and Abba Gold in Paris, mon Dieu!

As I mentioned in the last posting, train travel can be rather civilised at times. I had a lovely journey from London to Paris and met Fran from America and Yasmeem from Paris (but originally from Beirut). At this point I am going to make a shameless plug for moo.com, and their cool mini-cards, postcards, and sticker books - they can all be ordered and made from your facebook or flicker pictures. You can check them out on line, but until you feel an actual matt-laminated mini card in your hand, you might not fully get it. That's okay. Order them anyway, trust me. (and I'm not just saying this because Lisa work's for them. Her blog is the Rodwellian link, btw.) Order them now and you can use them at Christmas...my goodness, did i just use the c-word! It must be all the moo.com excitement.
Anyway, these moo mini-cards are really fun, and are a great thing to give to people as you travel through life. I gave one to Fran, and this piqued Yasmeen's interest. (she had been happily listening to her ipod as we north americans sat across from her talking and talking, as we're known to do) It turns out Yasmeen is a designer and found the cards really beautiful. She was travelling with a silkscreened leather bag she designed herself. Fran bought a couple of bags from her right then and there. You can look up Yasmeen Farah's bags and notebooks at www.gingerlily.fr



Anyway, we all got on famously, and in Paris I hung out with Yasmeen and her friends, ate steak frites and went to Abba Gold, of course: Voulez-Vous. The picture outside the theatre is of Yasmeen and her photographer friend Nicolas, who looked to me like a french Joaquin Phoenix, so I called him Joaquin Paris.

Paris

I was lucky enough to have been in Paris to see some of the fall colours. I decided to take the Eurostar train to there because it gets you to downtown Paris is less time than the three frickin' hours you are supposed to be at Heathrow before your flight even gets off the ground. Terrorist jerks! That and also because it freed up an extra stop on my round-the-world ticket to see friends in San Fran next June. And rail travel can be so much more civilised than air travel. In Paris, I had dinner with my tres pregnant friend Pet and her beau. She choose Hotel du Nord as our dining destination, where we were joined by another friend of theirs. Coincidentally, I was staying at the Nord Hotel, right across from the Gard du Nord; a place I recommend if you're looking for decent, relatively inexpensive Paris accommodation and will be travelling in and out of the city from the Gare du Nord train station, as I was. Not top choice for neighbourhood strolling, or dining, however. For that go to the very french Hotel du Nord. Not only does it share names with my hotel, but it is film-themed, in a way, like my year off. Check out their nifty website www.hoteldunord.org
And by the way, the food was excellent. It won't be quite as french in the near future, as the new smoking ban takes effect.


The day after dinner with my old friend from Toronto, I went to see the new Cinematheque built by Toronto-born architect Frank Gehry. On my way there I came across this modern, grass-covered structure built for sporty people activities. I don't really know much about it, but I liked the way the sun was illuminating the grass and plaza area so I laid down on the ground and took some pictures. That's kinda sporty, isn't it? Up, down, click, up.





In the same way Hotel du Nord was very french, this newish Cinematheque was very Gehry. Lots of curves, playful, surreal. The back street-side and the side that faced a neighbouring building were tamer; that is to say more geometric and therefore more traditional than the corner facade. They fit harmoniously with their surroundings, while still speaking the same language as the facade, which, being more organic, both faced and reflected the adjacent trees and park area. I really like the way the cube in the black and white photograph seems to float and drift away. I think this sensation of motion is very apt for a building that is devoted to the moving image.

Almost Paris. London, actually.

This post should really be dated late October, when I was in London. However, it's actually late November, and I am currently settled for a while at British School in Rome, and finally able to get caught up on this travel blog thing. So I have been thinking back to my week in France , looking through my photos and trying to distill the whole experience down to a few word and images. I have opted for more pictures than words. The reality of this whole blog thing is that when living my normal, non-sabbatical life I barely have time to read blogs, never mind write one. Cian, another resident artist here in Rome, suggested that a good title for a blog would be "I Don't Even Have the Time to Read a Blog, Never Mind Write One". I thought this would indeed be a good name for a blog, but only if the author were to write massively long and complex daily blogs that would require no less than a full day of thoughtful writing.
This blog, lucky for you and me both, will not be so word-y but rather more picture-y.
(It is Cian, btw, who so generously lent me his lovely Macbook Pro, that I am working on right now. Really, why do people bother with PC's? Life is too short to work on a PC if you don't have to!)
Anyway, before I get to Paris, let me go back to London for a bit to tell you about the best pizza ever. It was at a little place at 91 Brick Lane called Story Deli. It feels a bit like Commute on Queen West in Toronto. Sorry, no picture, but here is a link for Londoners and those London-bound. Go and eat organic pizza and drink organic beer.
http://www.timeout.com/london/restaurants/reviews/6710.html

This bit of pizza was had after seeing some shorts films by Lotte Reiniger at the Tate Modern. If you have not seen her work, check it out. They are ground-breaking paper cut-out animated films. Very beautiful, very lyrical.



...and very much sampled by American artist Kara Walker.