2018_004 Belgium – Lynn's Travel Adventures

Battle of the Bulge

April 13

Today we went back to WWII and remembered the Battle of the Bulge which took place in Bastogne Belgium from Dec 44 to end of Jan 45. In terms of casualties, the US lost more men in this battle than in the Battle of Normandy. As you know it was the last big offensive of the Germans and they surrounded the 101st Airborne division and the town of Bastogne. The good guy eventually won when Patton’s 3rd tank division broke through the German lines in Jan 45.

We visited the Bastogne War Museum and, once again, it was incredible. It’s amazing that with as many of these museums we’ve seen on this trip, we don’t get tired of them. Yes, we see similar weapons and vehicle, but each museum seems to take its own spin. This one started the presentation with WWI, which because of the punitive nature of the treaty, set the stage for the rise of the Nazi party and Hitler. It moved quickly through the war years and included information on the Belgium resistance. The unique part of this museum was that it told the story of the war through the eyes of 4 different characters, an American paratrooper with the 101st, a German infantry office and two Belgium civilians, one a female teacher who was a part of the resistance and a 13-year-old boy. We followed them throughout the occupation and the Battle of the Bulge. It turns out that they were real people and at the end of the museum we found out what happened to them after the war. It was amazing.

A set for one of the 3 movies; this was in the Ardennes Forest during the battle. We sat on fake tree trunks and the movie played behind the trees; very cool.

The movies were very cool as well. Instead of just having old video, they had sets that integrated the movies. It was a very unique way to present the videos.

This is a photo of Cologne after the war; it’s hard to imagine this is what the beautiful city we visited yesterday looked like in 1945.

From Bastogne, we headed to the American Military Cemetery just outside of Luxembourg City. This is where Patton is buried. He died after the war in a jeep accident and wanted to be buried with his men. At one time his grave was in the back of the cemetery with the men but so many people were going to the grave it was destroying the rest of the grass, so the cemetery officials moved him to the front of the cemetery.

For those of you who are fans of Band of Brothers, we found the graves of two of the secondary characters. (SPOILER ALERT) …Skip Monk and Alex Penkala. Lynn has seen BOB so many times and knows these men through the actors who portrayed them that it was very odd to see their graves. They were real people, not just characters in a TV program.

This is a very cool picture at the cemetery visitor center. The men on the left are veterans of the Battle of the Bulge who came to the cemetery to honor their comrades in arms who died in the battle. Again, for fans of BOB, the man kneeling at the front touching a tombstone is the real Donald Malarkey and the third man on crutches is Wild Bill Guarnere. This was a stunning picture. BTW. Donald Malarkey passed away last fall. He was the last of the main characters from the mini-series. Out of all the survivors of Easy Company, there are only 15 left. So sad.

After the cemetery, we drove only about 15 minutes to the Doubletree Hotel in Luxembourg City. We looked for Airbnb flats but there weren’t many and they were expensive, so we decided to stay here instead. We took a cab to the city center where we saw the Notre Dame Cathedral and walked around the town a little. After dinner and a walk to get our 10,000 steps, we grabbed a cab back to the hotel.

Tomorrow we are switching focus again back to WWI…Verdun. Not sure where we’re going to spend the night, but we’ll find something.

Night everyone.

On the Road to the Netherlands

April 9

We spent the morning in Bruges visiting a couple museums…. the beer and the diamond. Peter got to do a tasting at the beer museum but no free samples for Lynn at the diamond museum. We also stopped at a beautiful church. The highlight here was a statue of the Madonna and Child by Michaelangelo. As expected, it was amazing. We also wanted to visit a church that has a vial of Christ’s blood. According to legend it was brought to Bruges from Constantinople after the second crusade in the early 13th century. Unfortunately, the church closes from 1215 to 1400 and it was already 1pm when we got there. Since we still planned to visit Waterloo before getting to our flat in Utrecht, we really didn’t have time to wait. So, we’ll have to catch it on another trip.

A house in Bruge; every;thing in Europe is so old

Remnants of original 14th century ceiling painting

Since we spent more time in Bruges this morning than we planned, we opted out of Waterloo and headed straight to Utrecht. It was after 5pm before we arrived so we’re glad we came straight here from Belgium.

Our original plan had been to stay here for two nights, touring the city tomorrow before heading to Amsterdam on Wednesday. Turns out, though, that lodging in Amsterdam is crazy expensive, anywhere from 200-450 euro per night even on Airbnb and HomeAway. We’re not in the least bit interested in spending that much so we decided to take the train from Utrecht instead. We’re not sure if that’s going to work as tickets coming back from Amsterdam aren’t available on the website. So….we’ll head to the train station early in the morning to see what the situation is. We can take a train into Amsterdam and if we can’t get back by train, we can take a bus. They leave every 20 minutes, but the downside is that we’ll spend who knows how long getting out of Amsterdam during rush hour traffic. We’ll take our bikes (our host has bikes for us to use) to the train station in the morning and check it all out. Our plan B is to simply hang around Utrecht tomorrow. According to our host Trudi, it’s a beautiful city so there will be plenty for us to do here if we decide to hang around and blow off Amsterdam. We’ll see how it goes. Night everyone.

Dunkirk and Brugges

April 8

Well, for the 3rd day in a row we had a dry day!! Well, not exactly as it did sprinkle just a little yesterday but since it only lasted about a minute and we’re desperate for dry days we’re calling yesterday rain free.

After leaving Lille we headed to Dunkirk where we visited the museum honoring the rescue of over 330,000 British, French and Belgium soldiers during Operation Dynamo in May/June 1940. It was a relatively small museum but very nice. We didn’t take many pictures of the artifacts as they looked exactly like the artifacts, we took pictures of in the other 5 WWII museums we were in but there were some very interesting pictures.

Photo of men waiting to be evacuated from Dunkirk

After the museum we took a walk down to the beach. It was so foggy we could only see about a block in front of us. We didn’t make it down the the English Channel as we couldn’t see it. It could have been a block away or a mile; we had no idea.

Then we headed into Belgium and the town of Ostend. We parked in a 20-minute only spot and took a quick stroll down the boardwalk. We found a place for lunch but couldn’t find anyplace else to park the car, so we decided just to head to Brugges.

On the boardwalk on the Ostend beach; it’s on the North Sea; still pretty foggy.

Brugges is a beautiful town on canals, and we decided to spend the night here. We had a wonderful lunch in a restaurant on the canal which is what we’ve been waiting to do for the last 5 1/2 weeks. Sitting in the sun at a sidewalk cafe. We’ve been in a couple of outdoor cafes, but we were usually sitting by a heater to stay warm. This afternoon was wonderful. It was in the 60s and sunny. We sat over lunch for quite some time, chatting with a couple of kids from England.

Had lunch at one of these sidewalk cafes.

After lunch we checked into a small hotel, we found on the same street we found parking. It’s a cute little place and the room isn’t any more expensive than an Airbnb flat. Right now, we’re enjoying drinks in the main sitting room. Peter is coming up with a plan for tomorrow while Lynn works on the blog.

Once we got settled into the hotel, we went for a walk along the canal. We found a couple of windmills then went back to a cafe for a nightcap. It was a nice, relaxing day. Tomorrow we’re going to visit the Cathedral where there is a statue by Michelangelo before heading on to Gent and Waterloo. Not sure where we’ll spend the night, but we’ll come up with something.