This was the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo.
This meant three days of re-enactment on the field where the battle was fought in 1815. We travelled with Great Train Journeys and after visiting the 2010 enactment I made sure we were booked up well beforehand for the 200th year anniversary. It was popular with over 64K spectators there on Saturday night.
On the first night we were treated to the light Show ‘Inferno’ a show designed by Luc Petit He started with Victo Hugo’s poem that told the story of the battle but it developed into a spectacular ‘take ‘ on the Battle instead complete with horses, massed bands, artillery, dancing , soldiers in authentic dress and culminating in a finale where the Britishers sang ‘Land of Hope and Glory’.
The next day it was exploraton day – we were dropped off on the site and spent the day discovering Hougomont Chateau that has recently been renovated and turned into a museum . We visited the bivouacs of the British and French and then on to the museums – Wellingtons and Napoleons. Exhausting… The app in my phone told me we had walked 9.8 miles that day
So it was a bit of an anticlimax on the day of the actual battle. It started at 8.00pm but the smoke from the guns and cannons meant we couldn’t see the other end of the battlefield . We did boo Napoleon though when he rode by.
