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CANNON BALLS AND BOULES BALLS
War wounds of Valenciennes Cathedral

Valenciennes is not exactly a top travel destination. It's usually not on the list of major tourist attractions, but is well worth a visit, a lovelly and quiet French town with a long history, lying near France's northern border a few kilometers from Belgium. Valenciennes, in times gone by was the key city of Hainaut which is now divided between the two French speaking countries near Mons, Belgium, scenes of the first battle of WWI, (see Get Married in Mons), Hainaut is of old historical interest to both Great Britain and France because it was the ancestral land of England's Queen Philippa, wife of Edward III and mother of The Black Prince. (See Traitor's Gate to Mortimer's Hole).

Valenciennes was swallowed by France following the Thirty Years War, but lying as it does on the direct path of the flatland between Germany and Paris, Valenciennes has been in the cross-hairs of European wars for centuries. It still bears the scars of the last two world war conflicts. Unlike many other major European cities caught in World War II, who have polished the war damage with reconstruction and patch work, a walk through the narrow streets in this quiet city where the men play Boules on a quiet weekday afternoon, reveals a haunting pattern of bullet and shell pockmark scars on the stone walls. One can almost feel the muzzle flash of street to street fighting. Step into the blackened Gothic Cathedral, somber, serene and Holy sanctuary with a magifincent Gothic altar, you cannot help but notice the stained glass on one side of the high towering nave contrasted with the plain slightly gray glass on the other. The blast of the bombshell echoes in your head as you feel the ground shake and the glass and smoke fly, as the terrified town locals cower for safety from war's indiscriminant vengeance. It is places like this where memory is etched into the walls. © Bargain Travel Europe

Hotels in Valenciennes Ibis Valenciennes and Etap Hotel Valenciennes and at the airport Novotel Valenciennes Aerodrome

Normandy D-Day Tour From Paris 

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SEE ALSO:

GORGE-EOUS LUXEMBOURG

CHURCHES ON PERCHES - CASTELLANE

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