Wanderings: Cycling to the Christmas Truce Memorial

June 7, 2022

On Christmas Day 1914, the first year of World War 1, there was an informal truce among the British and German troops who sang carols to each other and eventually emerged from their trenches to play soccer. My favorite Swedish Metal band: Sabaton released a video last year of their new song Christmas Truce, with a rather elaborate reënactment of the event: https://youtu.be/HPdHkHslFIU

One of the locations of the truce is about 11 miles (as the crow flies) west of Lille, France (1). Getting there by bus would require three buses and more than an hour and a half of time. A bicycle would be quicker, so I grabbed a bike from the Lille bike share system (2) and headed west amid rain showers. Lille is a small city (3), and I soon left the city behind and was cycling in rural Flanders.

While the road had a bike lane for portions of the way, both the rain and the traffic became heavier. I pondered turning around, but glimpses of brighter skies ahead were encouraging. Crossing the Leie River at Frelinghien, France, there was not even a sign on the bridge welcoming you to Belgium. After a few false starts where the map was inaccurate, I crossed under a motorway and took a series of paths and narrow country lanes, sometimes shared with horse riders, to the northwest and the site of the Christmas Truce. There is a small memorial here where people leave soccer balls as momentos.

I returned to Lille via a different route, where I found quieter roads, but larger towns with shops. I got some chocolate in Belgium, then stopped at a French Patisserie in the pleasant little French town of Houplines. The sun came out, and I was now heading downwind (4), so the ride back through Flemish villages was very pleasant. I guesstimate about 25 to 30 miles in the saddle today.

(1) Why go to Lille? There was a really cheap flight from Varna in Bulgaria to Lille today.

(2) The heavy bikes are designed for last-mile rides in the city, not for sojourns to another country. But, any port on a storm; the bikes were readily at hand.

(3) On the plane this morning, the crew proudly announced that the airline specialized in "connecting Europe's medium-sized cities." (a)

(a) Varna is also not a large city either.

(4) Both of which helped my wet clothes dry off on the ride back.