We slept late, then headed up to see the Monument de la Victoire, built in 1926 to honor all of the soldiers who fought at Verdun during WWI.

Next up the hill was the amazing Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Verdun, started in, believe it or not, 457 a.d. A much larger version was begun in 990 a.d. The history just seeps out of this place.

A then we did a walk-around of the Citadel of Verdun. The citadel was built around 1624. From 1890 to 1914, an underground system with a total length of 7 kilometers was built underneath the citadel. This underground system served as headquarters of the French army during the Battle of Verdun. It is absolutely huge. We did not go inside for the tour, but the history is fascinating. Google is your friend on this one.

Skies started to threaten rain again, so we abandoned our plans to try to get up to the Verdun War Memorial and the Douaumont Ossuary outside of town that holds the remains of 130,000 soldiers who died during the battle of Verdun and were not identified. 800,000 perished in the battle of Verdun. It’s impossible to get your head around something like that.

We got back to the boat just as the fat rain drops started falling. Perfect timing for a change.