After we’d eaten I took the view that I didn’t want to hang around all evening at the Vimy Ridge Memorial waiting for the knock on the door that might or might not happen, so we reverted to plan B, and headed for 20 minutes to Marœuil.

En route, we still managed to fit in a quick visit to the ruins of the Abbaye Mont St Éloi. Basically, only the enormous facade remains, overlooking a vast plain. It’s really impressive at night, even though it’s not illuminated, because if its sheer scale as you stand in its archway. It was principally destroyed during the Revolution, and the Germans added to the effect in WW1.

The overnight stop at Marœuil is a Park4night, so not one you’d likely find in any other guide. It’s basically the railway station carpark, but it’s a tiny station in a small village, and is nice and rural. Reviewers explained that not many trains came through, and those that did were quite quiet. There were a couple of trains at around 8:30pm, then a couple more 12 hours later, so we were not disturbed at all. It was a very quiet stop as the reviews had suggested.

Once we hit the road, Sophie wanted to return to the abbey ruins we’d seen the previous evening for some daytime shots, and in the sunshine they looked really impressive even from some distance.