Péronne. A lovely town richly endowed with post-war Art Deco architecture. And, set within the walls of the town’s 13 C. castle, is the modern Historial of the Great War, designed by architect Henri-Edouard Ciriani.
Thankfully, our walking day to nearby Trefcon would be a short one, leaving us the morning to explore this museum which examines, with unflinching candor, the making of a war, its horrors and its aftermath. Among the artifacts and state-of-the-art presentations is Der Krieg (The War), artist Otto Dix’ collection of fifty unsettling etchings depicting the war as he experienced it from the trenches.
We left the museum in a pelting rain that persisted for the length of our mercifully short walk to Trefcon. Our warm room at Le Val D’omignon, a small rural gîte, was a thoroughly welcome end to the day.
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