Waterloo

From 20th century battles on Thursday we moved back to the 19th century today with the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815, when Napoleon was finally defeated by allied armies under the leadership of the Duke of Wellington. The town of Waterloo is a picturesque thirty minute train trip south of Brussels and it is a short walk from the station to the Musee Wellington. That is across the road from the church of St Joseph, where there are numerous marble plaques dedicated to British officers and soldiers who died at the battle.

Eglise St-Joseph

At the museum we followed the interesting audio-guide through fourteen rooms of the former coaching inn where Wellington spent the night before the battle.

We travelled on the local bus to the site of the battle, five kilometres south of Waterloo. The first attraction there was the Butte du Lion, a huge earthen mound constructed between 1824 and 1826 in memory of the soldiers who lost their lives in the battle. We climbed the 226 steps to the top where there is an enormous cast iron lion, a plan of the battle and a panoramic view of the surrounding area where the battle took place.

The view from the top

Other attractions included two short films, the first explaining how the battle unfolded from its commencement at 11.30am on the fateful morning until the final victory of the allied powers around 8.30pm, and the second bringing the event to life with excerpts from the 1970 Russian film 'Waterloo'.

After lunch (very tasty 'Wellington omlettes', with mushrooms, ham and red peppers at the Wellington Cafe), we visited the Panorama. This is a building which contains a circular painting 110m long and 12m high by Louis Dumoulin, depicting the battle situation at around 4pm on 18 June 1815.  The panorama was opened in 1912 in time for the centenary of the battle and is one of the few 19th century panoramic circular paintings still intact. As you walk around the viewing deck, you feel as if you are really there in the middle of the battle.

  

We returned to Brussels by bus and train, and then wandered through the Galleries St Hubert arcade, eventually finding a patisserie where we bought some fruit tarts to have with the remains of our Speculoos icecream (icecream studded with crushed Belgian toffee biscuits).

As we prepare to leave Belgium tomorrow, we can feel pleased that we have enjoyed all five  Belgian specialities: frites, mussels, beer, waffles and, of course, chocolate!