While Opa & Oma were here, we ended up traveling a lot. One of the places Opa wanted to visit was Verdun, France. One of the worst battles of WWI happened in Verdun. The "Shelling" of Verdun went down in history books as one of the bloodiest days of the war. There is a beautiful war memorial musem in the hills of Verdun where the shelling took place so many years ago. Pictures were not allowed inside, but if you ever find yourself in the area & love war history, it's a fantasticly done museum. Opa & Oma really enjoyed it.
Outside of the memorial you can walk down the hills & see where the shelling took place. Over 2 million shells were shot & released on this hill in less than 24 hours. The entire forest was leveled, & SO many people died that day. As you walk over the hallowed ground, you can still see the holes the shells made all over the landscape. It's so sad. I can't even imagine what it was like to be here that horrible time of the war.
Just down the road from the memorial museum was the memorial cemetery remembering those whose lives were lost there in Verdun during WW2. This building is magnificent.
Inside there is a large church as well as several tombs & names of those who have passed on.
Outside of the building is a massive military cemetery overlooking the hills of Verdun. It's spectacular.
After exploring the war memorials, we decided to find a local place to have lunch. We realized very quickly that France isn't like Germany & restaurants are actually quite difficult to find in these smaller French towns. We found a small restaurant, but they required reservations & didn't speak any English so we had to go & search for something else. We came across this small cafe in the middle of Verdun. It was tiny & we weren't even sure if it was an actual place/restaurant, but we were starving so we thought we'd check it out & see.
We sat down at an open table & stared at a beautifully piled bowl of French bread. Opa started eating it & in turn so did the rest of us. Some of the other guests looked at us & snickered. I knew we were doing something wrong, but didn't know why eating bread would be wrong. A waitress came & asked us what we wanted in French. I took French in high school but don't remember anything! We tried asking for a menu & she kept pointed at a blackboard behind our table. The blackboard had several things listed on it, but we had no idea what it said. Opa just told her, bring us food, any food. Language barriers are really hard. I've gotten so comfortable in English & German that it was kind of scary to me to not know what someone was saying to me. It makes me a little more aware of friends who get nervous talking to people in Germany. I feel so blessed that I am comfortable enough with the language that I don't get scared when I'm out & about. But France, yikes. We felt AWFUL that we couldn't understand or speak to them.
Out of the corner of our eye, a huge tray of cheese was just put down on a neighboring table. Oma (I love Oma & her curiosity) got up & walked over to the next table & asked the gentleman how to get the tray of cheese at our table. Luckily, the guy spoke a little bit of English. He explained that the entire blackboard was one meal. When you go to the restaurant, you order how many meals you want & the restaurant only serves that one meal. So at least we had ordered right. Oma proceeded to ask for some cheese from the kind man's tray. Everybody in the restaurant laughed at that one. In my mind, I just thought "It's cheese & it's wonderful! Why wouldn't we want cheese?" I finally caught on to the snickering & realized that cheese was probably an "after dinner" thing.
The waitress then proceeded to feed us, & they fed us well. First there was a starter plate which was a salad of sorts. We actually opted out of the starter because we were short on time, but now we wish we would have taken it too because it looked amazing. After salad, they brought the main dish which was a LARGE steak, lots of delicious vegetables, & french fries. We all kind of laughed & got nervous because a steak dinner like this wasn't going to be cheap. That language barrier was going to cost us a fortune. . . but boy was the food good. No matter the cost, it would be worth it.
The waitress came & took away our empty plates. She then brought out our HUGE tray FULL OF CHEESE & pointed to the bread basket. After the main course, you eat bread & cheese. How amazing is that? I love France. Steak & all you can eat cheese? The dollar signs were going up & up & up in our heads, but at this point we just didn't care. . . there was CHEESE in front of us, & it was delicious.
After eating ALL the cheese & bread we could stomach, the waitress brought us out some chocolate mousse parfaits with whipped cream on top. It was amazing.
Seriously guys, that whole experience was amazing. I've never done anything like it & would do it again in a heartbeat. It was delicious & SO FUN to experience. As we got ready to leave, we went up front to pay for our meal, & much to our surprise, it was only 11 Euro per person. 11 Euro!!! For salad, steak, veggies, fries, cheese, bread, & mousse. HOLY MOLY. I highly recommend being brave & trying new things everywhere life takes you. It's always an adventure & a lot of times it's a LOT of fun.
I want to put a little HOORAH out there for anyone visiting Verdun. Go to this cafe & eat. They are fabulous. Here's the info:
Café des Marronniers
4 Place Aristide Briand, 55100 Verdun, France
Adventure is Out There:
11 Euro Per Person. Takes about 2-3 hours to go through & then you can spend additional time walking the forests & grounds along a trail to see the holes in the landscape.
4 Euro per person or 10 Euro per family
4 Euro per person
6 Euro per person
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