Just arrived home in Italy after a 2 day drive from Tunbridge Wells.  Fabulous weather once you reach further south into the high pressure area in France, although today that may change as a cold front moves through. We stayed the night in Verdun which was the battlefield for one of the first world war’s most costly fighting between France and Germany. It is engulfeld in the tragic  loss of life of young French and German soldiers. It has the same deep emotional impact as the Somme memorials that I visited a couple of years ago with my son. This week Harry Patch, the last surviving English soldier from the First World War died at age 111. My grandfather fought in Picardie and in Gallipoli. Most of his friends were killed. He always talked of the comeraderie, but some memories were always buried. He was commissioned in the field after a disasterous advance when the young officer was shot. Somehow he survived - otherwise I wouldn’t have been here. I think he was wounded twice before being demobbed with not much hope of a job.

Anyway - the centre of Verdun  is attractive (once you find it) and we managed to stay in an old family-run hostellerie right in the old town. Incredibly there was also a rock concert in progress in the main river area - just like our first night’s stay in Arras.