2) Belgium - Ieper, Menin Gate - August 2016

Approaching the Menin Gate

If you are ever in Ieper, and you don't visit the Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate, then you are really missing out, and shame on you. It takes place every evening at 20:00, carried out by members of the Ieper Fire Brigade, and it is intensely moving.

The Menin Gate itself was originally intended to carry inscriptions of the names of every soldier who died defending Ieper during World War 1 with no known grave. However, there is only room for 70,000 odd, while over 90,000 soldiers who died in and around Ieper have no known grave, and so the memorial has inscriptions of the soldiers who died between August 1914, and August 1917.

It's not the greatest sketch I've ever made, but again, enough people came and had a look and made nice comments while I was making it, which I found really encouraging.