The Canadian Memorial at Vimy Ridge in France - one of the prettiest monuments and sculptures I've ever seen

While on vacation in August, we visited the Canadian World War 1 memorial on the Vimy Ridge, which is in North East France.

I was rather stunned at the memorial. Its absolutely beautiful, and pretty large !

Its built right on top of the old front line occupied by the Canadian army during World War 1.

Of all the memorials I've seen, this one really does show the suffering very well.

Its also quite huge, dwarfing many of the other memorials around.

After the war, France gifted the land to Canada so that they could provide a fitting memorial to their fallen soldiers, and personally I think they have done an incredible job.

The land all around it has been kept as was from World War 1. What you see above is a path that runs through part of that land. Its is separated off by an electric fence, because it may still contain live munitions, and also the bodies of some of the fallen, so it is an official war grave. You can clearly see the bomb craters, and where old trenches snaked through the land - it was quite incredible to see.

The memorial is inscribed with the names of fallen soldiers - its just shocking to see how many names are on there. You can see some of them on the wall in the left of the picture above.

The pic above looks out to the East from the ridge in the direction of Belgium.

We got there in the early evening, and as can be seen from the pic above, it was still quite busy.

The two tall columns really do create an incredible visual impact, and there are visible from quite far around as they are situated right on top if the ridge.

I also loved this little detail above. Thats the base of one of the flag poles out by the car park - with its Canadian Beavers ! You can see the memorial to the right in the background.

I have to say it was impressive seeing it, although the reason why it is there is very sad, however, I think such monuments are an important reminder.