Arras to Amiens France

Travelled:81km
Visited: Arras, Bapaume, Pozieres, Albert
Stay:Amiens- free parking at the lake, no service point, toilets, 1.4km to Cathedral N49.900131 E2.311660

We enjoyed our visit this morning of the Wellington Quarry in Arras. There are many underground chalk mines around Arras, so in WWI, as the town was on the front line, there was to be a surprise attack on the Germans. It took 6 months for New Zealand soldiers to dig 19km of connecting tunnels by hand so that 24,000 Commonwealth soldiers could spend a week underground preparing themselves for the battle on 9th April 1917. 

This was one of the 20 exits the soldiers took to go to battle.

After a very interesting tour we drove to the Vauban Citadel that was built in 1672. 

There was a memorial here for the 218 Resistance members who were shot in the defensive ditches in WWII. 

We then drove to Bapaume which had been taken by the Australians in WWI having a quick look at the town hall and church 

before continuing on our way to Pozieres to have another look at the Windmill site. It is here that Australians had their greatest loss of life in WWI. We listened to some podcasts from the Australian website WW1westernfront.gov.au. As we had visited this area quite thoroughly in 2013 we kept moving on.

View of Theipval Britsh memorial.

 We stopped in Albert to have a look at the church before arriving in Amiens and just managing to find a parking spot near the lake.

Mark with a digger.

We were on day 373 from the start of WWI