Sebastian Palmer | 21 Jun 2015 3:12 p.m. PST |
My wife and I returned yesterday from five days in Belgium. Four of those days we dedicated to visiting the 200th anniversary events in and around the Waterloo area. It was a peculiar mixed affair, I felt. Wonderful in some ways, and disappointing in others. I've just posted my 100th post on my blog, all about our trip and the re-enactment, etc. link
Hope you enjoy the 'report'! Feedback here and on the blog is always welcomed. Cheers Sebastian
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Westmarcher | 21 Jun 2015 3:28 p.m. PST |
A lot of good pics there. I particularly liked the one of the British square. I wish I had also spotted the Mercer memorial when I was there many years ago. It would have been interesting to look over the same ground Mercer saw during the battle. Thanks for sharing with us. |
Knob | 21 Jun 2015 3:41 p.m. PST |
I watched the live stream of the event. If you get past the horrible, and I mean horrid, commentating it was actually quite nice to watch until all the smoke covered the view, lol |
John Tyson | 21 Jun 2015 4:14 p.m. PST |
Thank you for posting your blog and photographs. Very entertaining. Last time I visited the Waterloo battlefield was back in 1986. |
svsavory | 21 Jun 2015 5:25 p.m. PST |
Thanks for sharing. Since I could not be there at least I've been enjoying photos from folks like you who could! |
Condotta | 22 Jun 2015 7:36 a.m. PST |
I enjoyed your post, and particularly your musings about what to say to Blucher and the effect of Napoleon's presence, even a fake one. Very nice. Thanks! |
seldonH | 22 Jun 2015 8:24 a.m. PST |
I loved every minute of it, ended up exhausted :), walking form one camp to the other was long, like mentioned above.. and then walking the camps up and down too :) but it was great.. Has anyone seen previous waterloo re-enactments ? I was surprised by the choreography, they had even built a small hugomont and small haye sainte ! is this always the case or was it first time ? I saw 200 years of borodino and though great it was not nearly as coreographed.. more of small actions on display ( obviously harder to do borodino ) , but I was very surprised with this one… Hat off to all the reenactors, they were absolutely fantastic… ( Now I have to classify over 1000 pictures and videos :) ) cheers Francisco |
DeRuyter | 22 Jun 2015 10:06 a.m. PST |
I had been to a previous re-enactment and this one was completely different. The scale of this one was immense and yes the commentary was bad. Some years ago you could sit on the lion mound and watch the re-enactment! I didn't have a ticket for the French bivouac but I did get in to the Allied camp and saw Wellington giving a TV interview! Now to go through all the photos and video. My view was similar to yours lots of open fields and movement in the distance. Fortunately I had my binos with me! |
Sebastian Palmer | 22 Jun 2015 1:33 p.m. PST |
Hi guys, and thanks for the feedback. We had a pair of binoculars, albeit not very good ones – they were freebies that came when we joined the National Trust! Still, they made a great deal of difference to our viewing pleasure! I think better binoculars and a better camera are in order! Cheers, Sebastian PS – Only 800 or so pics to organise here. And many of those just need binning! |
juanturku | 22 Jun 2015 1:51 p.m. PST |
A wonderful experience! I watched the two battles and found them superb. My wife an me had both binoculars and enjoyed very much the show. The first day when we left the tribune there were 5 dutch reenactors out of the battlefield carrying wounded Prince William of Orange shouting "Make way! The prince of Holland is wounded!" Very funny. When is the next one? |
seldonH | 22 Jun 2015 5:22 p.m. PST |
Juan I cannot believe it, I saw that right there… !!! If I had know we could have connected and chatted about Napoleon at War and stuff :) That make way thing was great… It was really a fantastic event… |
jammy four | 23 Jun 2015 4:41 a.m. PST |
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juanturku | 23 Jun 2015 12:45 p.m. PST |
SeldonH. What a pity we did not recognize each other. Next time I will wear a "NaW" T-shirt. :) Ricardo was not there but some NaW playtesters were enlisted in the french army. They attacked Hougoumont several times and even managed to break part of the cartoon wall in their enthusiasm. :) They told me when they were in the attack column advancing through the wheat field in the sunset they all felt like if they were in a real battle. Such is the power of sugestion. My brother learned a lesson in tactics when in the middle of the smoke he suddenly saw a group of mounted british dragoons just three meters from him. He told me in a real battle all his battalion would have been cut in to pieces. In the same way it was amazing to see how fast moves cavalry compared to infantry. A wonderful experiece! |
seldonH | 24 Jun 2015 8:39 a.m. PST |
ha… I have that attack to Hugomont filmed.. On Saturday when I was looking for the French camp to go visit I saw a bunch of Spanish reenactors in french uniform and I asked one of them for directions to the camp :) must have been from your brother's unit !!! :) cheers Francisco |