Verdun, Douaumont Ossuary and other sights and sites

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I hadn’t been into the Ossuary for several years. The following have changed:

A. The film has been updated pretty well. It used to be in different languages, run an 20 minute intervals. It is now all in French, but you get a translation headpiece. Worth seeing.

B. The large photographs of veterans, taken in 1916 and in 1986’ish have been taken down.

The fort at Vaux (worth a visit, I think it’s better to see than Douaumont) now offers English headpiece translations. I believe that the fort at Douaumont now does the same, too.

I picked up quite a good simple guidebook to the Verdun battle main sites. It has clear location maps and good explanations, all in English. Worthwhile, if you intend a visit, particularly if you can spend a couple of days, as it’s a big area. I’ll go back at some point to see the less well known places, all featured in the book.

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The huge craters at the destroyed hilltop village of Vauquois are worth a visit. You can see how pre-cast concrete (a German invention in 1914) was used.

We spent a day, starting with the memorial on the Via Sacra. Then to the main museum, then to the Ossuary, then Vaux, the bayonet trench and then to Vauquois. I think this is a pretty good way to do things in, as it brings some sort of order and sequence to the events of the 10 month battle.

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I have started to map out the sites from the book.

Unlike BaseCamp, as far as I can work out, MyRoute does not allow a single map with just waypoints. It always joins them up. That doesn’t matter as you can just hit ‘Take me to’ or create a map yourself.

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Interesting report & nice pictures :thumb

I’m hoping to be in the area this summer so I’m hoping you’ll put the waypoints in Dropbox when you’re done ;)
Please & thanks
 
Last time we were there the tourist office was running an afternoon bus tour for not a lot of money. Guiding was officially in French but the guide was happy enough to fill any gaps forus.
 
Thank you all.

Whilst it’s no replacement for an official tour, the book I mentioned is good for pinpointing the major and the less well known locations and events. For example, I didn’t know that there is an undamaged fort, south of Verdun but part of the fortified ring, which shows what forts like Douaumont and Vaux were like before the onslaught. The fort is called, Ouvrage de La Falouse and is, I believe, open to the public.

https://www.tracesofwar.com/sights/53495/Ouvrage-de-la-Falouse.htm

The official museum, entry to which can include entry to the Vaux and Douaumont forts, now has an excellent audiovisual display, telling the story of the battle. It is very cleverly overlaid over a physical map. It’s why I’d recommend going to the museum after the Via Sacra memorial and before the Ossuary or forts.

Whilst it’s easy to call the First World War a mincing machine, Verdun was truly awful, with men literally fed for 300 days up the Via Sacra (the Sacred Way) into an absolute and unrelenting hell. It is easy to see why it holds such a grip on France still.

PS I’ll certainly mark out the other sites.
 
Some people ask me how long a visit will take. I’d say that to ‘do’ the Via Sacra memorial, the museum, the Ossuary and the nearby bayonet trench, would be a morning. Then add an afternoon if you want to see a fort (including the audio tour) and say the destroyed hilltop village / craters at Vauquois, for example. Like any 20th century battlefield, the area is huge, Vauquois being about 30 minutes drive from the Ossuary.

An alternative would be to take one of the well marked walks, to see some of the other sites, maybe taking a picnic for lunch. Parts of the battlefield are still wired off, with clear warnings that the area is still littered with unexploded ordnance. What the locals have done since I last visited in 2020, is to clear more of the trees in some areas, to reveal the pockmarked shell holes, still visible after more than 100 years.

The site at Vauquois has occasional guided tours into some of the tunnels. I think these amateur local history things are quite good, even if they might be largely in French. As above, someone will try their best to include everyone in the explanations.

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Many of the entrances are still open today but there is a clear sign not to go into them unless with a guide. It’s advice that I think it would be stupid to ignore, not least if one were to collapse and you were on your own, nobody would find you. Not least, the ensuing mess would probably see the site closed, ruining it for others. Don’t do it.
 
In the style of the Fast Show…. When visiting Verdun, I have mostly been staying in Sainte Menehould, bottom left corner of the screen shot in the post above.

From there, it’s say a 20 minute hop down the motorway to the Via Sacra memorial and in to Verdun itself.

I stay at the Cheval Rouge (Logis) hotel, run by nice people. It’s very French and recommended if you like pig’s trotters.

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All the 45 sites in the book mapped out. I really would suggest getting the book (available in the UK by order) from the main Verdun museum, marked on the map) and from other sites in Verdun.

Sometimes I have had to take a little bit of a guess as to where they are, but on the whole I think they are probably not too far out.

https://www.myrouteapp.com/en/social/route/6238123?mode=share

As I created the points in the order that they come in the book, they are not necessarily completely logical as a route. But, again, I doubt if anyone would use the route as it stands anyway.

Have fun and let us know if you enjoy using it, please.

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All the 45 sites in the book mapped out.

Thanks Richard :thumb2

In order to open the map I had to sign up for MyRoute. Managed that alright so was impressed with myself
And then I saved the route as .gpx 1.1 to the MacBook, so far so good
Opening the file in BC gave me the track, which matched the roads, and a route which didn't until I recalculated it
It's not however listing the way points for me. If I hover the mouse over the black dot on the route I get your description alright & I can then create a waypoint at that location but it then doesn't give me your text
Am I doing something wrong ? Or is that 'it' & I just need to find & 'redo' all the waypoints ?
(I've no interest in 'going for gold' on MyRoute, which would undoubtedly solve my problem, as I'm a one trick pony & BC is about the limit of my routing abilities ;) )
 
Thank you.

I thought that might happen. I’ll try changing the shaping points into waypoints ASAP. That might well fix it. Let’s see…..
 
Thanks Richard
The download still just has the track & the route, which I need to recalculate so it's not all straight lines
I only see a list of the waypoints when BC is doing it's recalc thing & then it disappears again
I tried copying the list but no joy with that either
But I can see the waypoints now, shown as blue flags in BC, so I can just zoom in on each of them & create my own waypoint :thumb2
 
Thanks.

When you transfer the file into a Garmin device, the names might transfer over, I think. Give it a go.
 
Just giving this some thought.

When going from MyRoute to my XT, I don’t go via BaseCamp. I go:

MyRoute > Save As .GPX 1.2 > Garmin Drive app > XT

From memory, this brings any shaping and waypoints across, along with their bespoke names.
 
As I thought, it does not appear to be possible to create a stand alone file of just waypoints in MyRoute. They always have to be joined together in a route.

That being said, the blue flags you are seeing should appear as hearts on your Garmin device and then appear in your favourites. Then use these to navigate to that spot or ask the device to join several together. Or just create your own route(s) between them in BaseCamp. Whichever is easiest, I guess.
 
Being a fully fledged Luddite I have neither Garmin Drive nor an XT so .gpx 1.2 won't work for me. I have a Nav5 & a Nav6 (only cos the mount on a BM won't take a Quest :D) & BaseCamp
So I transferred the .gpx 1.1 file from BC onto both N5 & N6. Route transferred almost instantly to the N5 but took a bit longer for the N6 & as it was doing it each of the waypoint names showed up, as in "American Cemetery to ruined village' & then 'ruined village to monument', etc so looked like it was transferring them all. Once I'd downloaded the route, imported it & opened it I could see the waypoint names in the preview. However neither the Favourites nor the All Waypoints folders had any of the waypoints listed. So, as a last resort I zoomed into the area but I've no heart symbols showing :(

I'm just going to sit & recreate the waypoints the old fashioned way...
Thanks for the time & effort of creating the waypoints in the first place & your efforts to get me sorted :beerjug:
 
Oh well, at least you have the waypoints.

More importantly, I hope you can get out to visit them :beerjug: not least as it’s a long way from Tipperary…. And Kildare….. not far though as the crow flies. If only that damned water wasn’t in the way.
 


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