Souviens toi

Our day started at the Memory Centre and Martyr Village of Oradour sur Glane. The history is horrifying. After an officer went missing, the SS wanted to make an example of a local village and, on 10 June 1944, just 4 days after D-day, Oradour sur Glane was surrounded. Its inhabitants herded into the town square, men were separated from women and children before they were all incarcerated and murdered and the village set on fire. The village was destroyed, together with any evidence of the atrocity. Surviving families were never able to identify their loved ones because of the scale of burning and burial in mass graves.

The village was designated a memorial and preserved, and a new village built overlooking the historic site. Each year, the massacre of 640 people is remembered with a parade from the new town to old, held in silence as a time to reflect. Here are a few photos which don’t do justice to what happened here.

Our walking holiday started this afternoon in Martel. The plan was to meet up with Jacky and Ken and park the cars in time for our hotel transfer at 5pm.

We arrived early, imagining drinking a cold beer while we waited – it’s been a long hot day. Despite instructions telling us about free on-street parking, none was to be found. Martel has taken against long term parking and limits you to 2 hours each day. To be fair, those 2 hours are free but not much use when abandoning a car for 5 days.

Tourist Information and InnTravel came to our rescue, each with a different solution so we chose the easiest and abandoned our cars in a car park 10 minutes outside town. Fingers crossed they will be there when we get back!

With 30 minutes to spare, we arrived at our pickup point and the taxi driver was already waiting, no cold beer for us.

40 minutes later we arrived at Beaulieu sur Dordogne where we spend the next two nights. Our hotel is right beside the river but room has a view of the back alley – you can’t have everything in life

Our find of the day, apart from the car park, was wine bottles sealed with glass stoppers. Never seen before and could now be the new criteria for choosing wine.