NAPOLEON's LAST HEADQUARTERS

June 20, 2016

Napoleon’s Last Headquarters or the Ferme du Caillou is located 5 km to the south of the Lion Mound at Vieux-Genappe. Napoleon spent the night of 17 to 18 June 1815 there under the protection of the famous Imperial Guard battalion in the neighbouring orchard and made his battle plans.

The farm was partially burned by the Prussian army on the morning of 19 June. In 1818, the new owner rebuilt the main building. The small ossuary that was built in 1912 to hold bones found on the battlefield can still be seen in the garden. In 1951, the farm was converted into a Napoleon Museum.

This year there were some festivities to celebrate the 201 anniversary of the Waterloo battle.
I decided to visit Napoleon's last headquarters to see what was going on there.





3 soldiers were sitting in front of the farm



Visitors and soldiers at the entrance


One maid leaving



There had been a lunch given by Napoleon and now they were standing in the garden



Behind there were a few bivouacs



Napoleon's horse of course not the one from 1815 !




Soldiers gathered at the entrance of a tent



A few visitors looked what happened





What happened was that all figurants were watching the football (soccer) game Euro 2016 Belgium against Italy ! This of course was far more important than to play an old soldier of 1815 at that moment. The visitors were also very interested ! It was a quite funny anniversary celebration !And on top Belgium won !!

TURTLE ISLAND IN FETHIYE BAY,

 June 13, 2016

Part of our excursion to Dalyan, (see post below) was the stop at the "Turtle Island"

Turtle Beach, is surrounded by salt water on one side and fresh water on the other. It is one of the last breeding grounds of the Sea Turtles and therefore delightfully undeveloped.

Normally Turtle Beach can be visited, but from 1 May - 31 October the beach is inaccessible to the public between 20.00 and 08:00, because of noise and light disturbance. It is protected and surveyed by volunteers.

These measures have proven to be successful, despite the enormous increase of tourism. The monitoring programme carried out from 1988 onwards, shows a stable population and even a slight increase of nests on the beach.



But we had the opportunity to see these enormous turtles called Caretta caretta in the water. The caretaker threw crabs into the water and they came up to fetch them.

You can read more about them here





They were very quick and it was difficult to take pictures !



Here they are playing in the water








Some of them are so big as an arm chair and weights over 80 kgs !

It was a very interesting part of our excursion

I found this video on YouTube, which shows you that even turtles are playful and intelligent !

FETHIYE TOMBS IN TURKEY

 June 8, 2016

During our stay in Marmaris Turkey, we made an excursion to Dalyan in Muğla Province located between the well-known districts of Marmaris and Fethiye.

The town of Fethiye is located in Southwestern Turkey on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. There is a large mountain at the base of the village, and in the mountains you can see these these impressive rock tombs, built in 350 B.C. and which are now a tourist attraction.

As we did this tour by boat we only could see the ruins from the river side. There is one tomb
 named after the Greek inscription on the side, reading “Amyntou tou Ermagioiu” meaning “Armyntas son of Hermagios”. What makes the tomb of Amyntas unique from the other tombs is its size, most mountain side tombs are the size of a small room, this tomb’s height is equivalent to one of a full-sized temple.



From Marmaris to Dalyan we took the bus which brought us to the river where we took a boat.



There were lots and lots !



This one is just leaving



and this is our boat. It had an electric motor and didn't make any noise. This was perfect on this beautiful riverside through the green rocky landscapes.



For 45 min we travelled on the river until we saw the tombs from far



They looked very impressive !







It's amazing how they are preserved after thousands of years !

The tradition of burying the dead in a house-type tomb started in Anatolia during 3 thousand B.C. and continued until the end of the Roman Empire.

We continued our boat trip to the İztuzu Beach to see the turtles.