Ask anyone who has visited the National WWI Museum and Memorial what they remember most, and one image returns again and again: the field of 9,000 red poppies blooming beneath a glass bridge, each flower standing for a thousand lives lost.
It is the emotional gateway to a main gallery full of unforgettable moments — the giant mural of the Pantheon de la Guerre, a wall of enlistment posters in a dozen languages, the peer-through windows into a bombed-out church and a walk-through trench where the sounds of battle surround you.
The museum balances the epic and the intimate: beside tanks and artillery sit letters home, a Red Cross nurse’s kit, and the personal stories of soldiers from more than 30 nations.
Leave time for Memory Hall and the two exhibit halls flanking the tower, and for simply standing quietly. Some museums inform you; this one stays with you.
