We left the campsite in Ghent mid-morning and jumped on the auto-route heading towards Dunkerque, France. We arrived at our campsite in Dunkerque in just over an hour and found that it had direct beach access. We had a quick lunch in camp before walking into town. We walked out towards the beach and were soon on a large pedestrian boulevard that stretched the entire length of Dunkerque. It was a windy day out but it was sunny and there were lots of people out for a stroll. We passed numerous restaurants and cafes lining the waterfront and stopped by quite a few to check out their menus. Moules-frites (mussels and fries) were definitely in season as it featured on nearly every menu. We had just eaten lunch so we kept a couple of our top choices in mind in case we wanted to come back for dinner. We walked for about two kilometers till we reached the end of the boulevard and then crossed a little bridge to arrive at the Memorial du Souvenir. It is a small, not-for-profit museum that focuses on the events surrounding Operation Dynamo of WWII.

Operation Dynamo was the largest military evacuations in British history and began on May 26, 1940. At 6:57 pm, the evacuation began with 240,000 British and 140,000 French waiting on the beaches of Dunkerque. British troops found themselves surrounded by German forces, with their backs to the English Channel. The French and Belgian troops were fighting alongside the British to keep the Germans at bay but when the Belgians capitulated and surrendered, the Brits decided to withdraw from Dunkerque. They however, failed to inform their French allies that they were doing so and this led to some potentially disastrous political tensions. The traditional, bitter rivalry that has existed between the two nations for so many centuries re-surfaced. Originally, Operation Dynamo was only going to evacuate the British troops but Churchill recognized the political ramifications of this and ordered the army to evacuate any French troops that needed assistance as well. Without proper infrastructure to load the men onto the boats, soldiers had to wade/swim out to the boats and many drowned due to exhaustion before they could reach the boats. The operation that was originally only supposed to last a few days went on till June 2^nd and 338,226 soldiers were evacuated. 40,000 were taken as POW by the Germans and 500,000 tons of food and ammunition, 2,472 guns and 63, 879 vehicles were abandoned during the hasty evacuation.

The visit to the museum started with a fifteen minute video that showed the evacuation in progress and the threat that the evacuees faced, under fire from the notorious German Luftwaffe. The museum contained numerous artifacts recovered from the waters of Dunkerque, including aircraft propellors, bullet casings, mines and even a jeep. Numerous boats, ranging from military vessels to commercial ones and even to private fishing boats only 15 feet in length, were engaged in the evacuation. Of the thousand or so boats employed, nearly two hundred perished – often along with their crew and passengers. This operation was hailed almost as a victory back in England even though in reality it was a costly and dangerous evacuation. I guess that the victory was that they succeeded in evacuating more soldiers than originally anticipated. In addition, the volunteering of private boats and small fishing vessels to support this evacuation demonstrated the resilience of the British and their fighting spirit.

After the museum, we walked back to camp along the same boulevard and had a cup of tea to warm up. We decided to go out for dinner that evening and went to the "Moule Rit" (loosely translates to “Laughing Mussel”) restaurant, only a short walk from camp. It was known for its 50 varieties of sauces in which the moules were cooked. I ordered moules (from Dunkerque) which were cooked in a cream sauce with chorizo, onions, celery and assorted herbs. This was accompanied by fries and mayonnaise, both made from scratch in the restaurant. Meghan went for a seafood salad as she wasn't too keen on the moules.She did try two moules though and decided that she was pretty neutral about them. The moules were much larger than the variety I’d had on my last trip and each one was a forkful. It took me well over an hour to get through the 97 or so moules and by the end, I was thoroughly stuffed, but had really enjoyed the meal.