Peace Walk

(I forgot to include this into my Verdun post but after the events of last week in Lebanon and France, maybe it is ok...) I'm not sure which day is it of my trip. Today it's Saturday I think. I am near Verdun. I should be half way through, so maybe that's a good thing, but I hitch-hike a lot and that doesn't count as walking... As I stand here, in this small cold stream trying to refresh my feet, I wonder, whether my "PeaceWalk" was doomed from the start because it had the wrong approach. Maybe a nice idea but the wrong approach... A Peace Walk for the dead... I don't think that the dead care whether we are at peace or at war. Maybe they feel a little bit dishonoured if we wage wars on one another when they fought "the war to end all wars". But other than that, I think that they don't care at all. It's just that if we go to war, this is us disrespecting them. But while on the PeaceWalk, that right from the start didn't go...

It seemed appropriate to do a post about Verdun on the 11th November. The Armistice day in contrast to the one of most bloodiest battles in history. And one of the longest, if not the longest. And it is also the place for the German and French reconciliation. Part 1: history and the sites Before going to the battle, lets visit some places, that should be of peace and reconciliation. One famous one-of-the-kind landmark in Verdun is the Saint-Amand sluice bridge. It does not look anything fancy but it is the genius engineering that is impressive (too bad this part is not seen). "SAINT-AMAND SLUICE BRIDGE. The sluice bridge in Saint-Amand is clever piece of military engineering which is part of a whole system designed to cause defensive flooding of the area upstream from Verdun. Based on a project designed by Vauban, work on the bridge began in 1680 under the control of a royal engineer named Peirault and was completed in 1685. The first trial floods were insti...