FARMS AROUND WATERLOO BATTLE FIELD

During years the farms which are located along the battle fields, had been forgotten and slowly became ruins. But now of course for the bicentenary they had to be at least repainted and a bit repaired !

One of the most important farms was the "La Belle Alliance" which had been an inn and is situated near the Waterloo Lion. It played a big part during the battle. On the morning of June 18, 1815 the inn became Napoleon Bonaparte's headquarters for the Battle of Waterloo.





After the battle, at around 9 pm, the Duke of Wellington and Gebhard Blücher met close to the inn signifying the end of the fighting. The building has become a night club and had already been restored some time ago. I wonder what Napoleon would say that his headquarters had become a Night Club !



200 years ago










Mont St. Jean



Another important one is the farm of Mont-Saint-Jean which served as hospital for the English troops, as the memorial explains. This one is not yet finished but most of the renovation is done.










The Hameau du Roy farm  was also in the center of terrible fights. Today it is a famous bakery.


an ancient convent



A memorial says that at this place  Napoleon attacked the English and Scottish army.



and another farm mostly finished

WATERLOO BATTLE RENOVATION FOLLOW UP N° 3

As the sun was shining and it felt like spring I decided to go to the Waterloo Lion to see the progress of the battle field's renovation which should be finished by beginning June.



Advertising posters are showing up and tickets can be bought. The prices for the reconstitution show are not the modest once, they vary from 15,75 standing, to 38 € for seats. There will be thousands of people and Waterloo will be full of tourists.



The renovation had only progressed a bit. Now the building which replaces the beautiful old once above in the pictures is at least standing.



Honestly I preferred how it was in the past.



Huge pumps are blowing air into the building to dry it out.



The underground museum looks finished at least from outside



The access to the entrance seems to be finished too



The street from a big parking to the site is almost finished too



But around the site hasn't made any progress



The Lion untouched overlooks stoically the construction works. Many people had climbed up the 253 steps and overlooked the battle fields



There was a group of English teenagers at the entrance of the panorama



mostly English tourists were enjoying a drink on the terrace of the only restaurant which hadn't been demolished.



One of the 3 old houses which survived the reconstruction, was at least painted. The two others were still in the same sad state.



At least one of the memorials had been cleaned too.

There is still a lot to do to finish the site in 3 month ! They have to do hard working like ants !

Previous post about the renovation here

LASCAUX CAVE EXPOSITION IN BRUSSELS

February 3, 2015

I had heard that there was the famous Lascaux Caves exhibition at the Cinquantenaire in Brussels, after having been in Chicago, Houston, and Montreal. Of course I didn't want to miss that and went with a friend to see the exhibition. It was absolutely great and very interesting. The caves were discovered by 2 teenagers in 1940. You can read more about the caves here.

Containing reproductions of paintings engraved 20.000 years ago, the cave of Lascaux is considered to be one of the most remarkable examples of Paleolithic cave art known to mankind but their meaning remains obscure.

Men, known as Cro-Magnons, similar to us in every way except for their culture, turned a little cave in Southwest France into a prehistoric sanctuary.



The Cinquantenaire in Brussels where the Exhibition takes place



The entrance









The paintings prove that our ancestors of 20.000 ago were real artists, had already color pigments and tools.



They also didn't look as we had learned at school, they looked as we do today. 



This is a woman who put face painting on her son. There were also black people and Asiatic looking people, but I couldn't take a picture, photographing was not allowed but I did it without flash.



This is a skeleton of a tiger found in the Ardennes in Belgium. It was huge, our today's tigers would look like house cats against them.



The rhinoceros skelteon was also much bigger than our rhinoceros today



A mammoth baby



and an enormous elk skeleton found in Ireland.

While we humans are getting taller from generation to generation, it seemed to me that the animals today are smaller.

After Brussels the exhibition will be shown in Paris, Geneva, Seoul, Tokyo and  Fukuoka (Japan).