Verdun

Our last day! Seems like forever ago that we were in Normandy. Today we went back in time.

After breakfast at the hotel we headed to Verdun, with a stop along the way at the largest American cemetery in France, for WWI. The drive was through the Meuse River valley and was very pretty.

The Verdun battlefield area is a large site with a number of memorials and a museum. The ossuary has the bones of over 100,000 soldiers, which was very powerful to see. We also visited the remains of one of the many towns that was wiped out.

Lunch was gallettes (savory crepes) in the town of Verdun.

The fitting last stop of the tour was in Reims, which was Eisenhower's headquarters at the end of the war (back to WWII) and where the Germans signed the unconditional surrender. The room was sealed up after the war, and it was interesting to see all of the maps on the walls as they were then.

The logistics were incredible. The allies laid numerous oil pipelines below the channel and across France.

Back to Paris for our final night. We had just enough time to drive past the major sights and grab a nice dinner.

Everyone had the onion soup

 

 

Battle of the Bulge

Today we're in Belgium seeing the Battle of the Bulge sites around Bastogne. Our hotel was on McAuliffe Square, named after the 101st Airborne general. The Germans had the city surrounded and asked McAuliffe if he wanted to surrender his 18,000 men. "Nuts!" was his reply. Most of the town's buildings in the center didn't survive the war.

The Battle of the Bulge was Hitler's last ditch attempt to split the Allied forces, and was the largest battle of the war the Americans were engaged in. In December 1944 the Germans concentrated a large number of divisions and broke through the lines near Bastogne, attempting to reach Antwerp. The American units in the front line slowed the Germans down long enough to allow time for the main armies to arrive, and held strategic points like Bastogne to prevent the Germans from establishing supply lines. Eventually the Germans ran out of steam, less than halfway to their goal, and the American armies encircled and defeated them.

On the edge of Bastogne is the American memorial.

We spent the day roaming around the Belgian and Luxemburg countrysides seeing where the battles were fought. Outside Wiltz we took some back roads through the Ardennes, the dense, hilly woods through which the Germans initially invaded France. It's easy to see why the French didn't suspect the Germans could mount a major invasion through here. And of course lots of windmills.

Had a pleasant lunch in Clervaux, a pretty little town in a valley. I loved how they served the egg yolk for the carbonara. The tomato soup was excellent, and Dad and David had the chicken cordon blu. John had the Werner schnitzel one more time.

Did you know that Luxemburg has its own language, Luxembourghish? Our waitress kindly spoke some for us.

The museum in the castle had a lot of paraphernalia from the war and a Sherman.

Next we drove along what's known as the Skyline Drive, a scenic ridge over the Our river, which is the border with Germany and the front line before the battle. At one point we went down to check out the Our and had a few more minutes in Germany (no sausage).

Continuing on to Malmedy, the site of a gruesome massacre of American prisoners by the SS Panzer division headed by Jochen Peiper. Another museum we didn't know existed that turned out to have a lot of excellent full size dioramas showing what life was like for the soldiers, and a good movie. Peiper was convicted of war crimes (he was involved in a number of other murders) but only served 11 years. Amazingly he went on to become an executive at Porsche and was even briefly heading up US sales, but couldn't get a visa. Eventually someone in France in the 1970s shot him and burned his house down.

We headed across country through scenic valleys to La Gleize, which was as far as Peiper got and now has a Tiger parked by the church.

It was a lot of fun traveling the backroads today. The terrain was a major factor in the battle, and you could get a good sense for what it was like here in 1944. Only instead of snow our weather continues to be perfect.

South to Bouillon, our next overnight stop It's a pretty little town on the river. Napoleon III stayed in our hotel once.

Great pizza for dinner.

 

 

 

Four Countries in a Day

We left Rothenburg, Germany this morning and had a nice drive through scenic rolling hills. Passed over the Rhine and Mosel rivers and decided to make an impromptu stop in Trier for lunch. This is the oldest city in Germany, founded by Augustus Caesar in 15 BC, and for centuries is was the major Roman city in the west. It still has one of the old Roman gates, and the 100 foot high basilica is the largest Roman structure outside of Rome.

The main square was a beautiful spot for a quick lunch. Yesterday I nearly wrote that it was the last sausage of the trip, but today I had the currywurst once more and the others had the ubiquitous sausage on a bun. Lesson: Never make assumptions about sausage.

Back to the French-speaking world, we passed into Luxembourg for a stop at the American cemetery. This is a pretty spot, which includes Patton's grave.

On to France to see Fort du Fermont, one of the forts that made up the Maginot Line. After the first World War the French built a line of impregnable forts on their border. Unfortunatey in the next war the Germans just went around the forts. It was a fun tour, descending 30 meters into a warren of tunnels and rooms. It was an enormous fortification that seemed to go on forever. The tour was in French but we could pick out enough of the meaning, and I think our presence was appreciated by the guides for whom this is a labor of love.

The view from these guns. Windmills and solar are all over France and Germany.

Next up is the Battle of the Bulge, so we're sort of back to the start of the trip as this was the next major battle after Normandy and Falaise. We drove to our hotel in Bastogne and had a great fondue dinner while planning the next day.

 

 

 

Nuremberg

On our way out of Prague this morning we stopped by the spot where the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich occurred. It's a fascinating story that's mostly unknown (unless you're a Czech).

Then we drove back into Germany to Nuremberg, to visit two major sites. First was the Nazi party rally grounds, the site where many of the iconic photos of masses of "Brown Shirts" were taken. The party would hold yearly week-long meet-ups here, with camping, athletic events and enormous rallies in which Hitler and other leaders would work up the crowd.

We went to the main rally ground with its marble stands. It's still used somewhat, but beginning to fall into disrepair. It was called the Zeppelin field because blimps used to land here.

We walked around the lake (this was a recreational area with boating and a zoo long before the Nazis transformed it) and had... you guessed it... bratwurst and beer for lunch. Saw several burly tattooed guys, one of which had the Nazi eagle with swastika in a circle design, but the circle was a solid blue dot. Of all of the places we've been this one feels the most like it could be a pilgrimage spot for Neo Nazis. It just feels sort of dirty. Did not get a picture of the tattoo. The folks at the food stand were very nice, by the way.

Around the lake is the enormous colosseum that was only half finished before the war started. The walls are 37 meters high, with another 30 meters and a roof planned, and to seat 50,000 people. Hitler's favorite architect Albert Speer designed all of these monumental structures - I wouldn't recommend him for a kitchen remodel. They've obviously had a difficult time over the years figuring out what to do with it. One proposal was a shopping mall. Today it houses a symphony in one of the side buildings and a museum, which was fairly interesting. The best bit was a film of the American GIs blowing up the swastika above Hitler's podium.

Note the white van in this photo. This place was enormous.

An enormous road was the backbone of the area and was to lead to a rally ground much larger than the Zeppelin field, where they could stage tank formations and large battle reenactments. It was never finished.

If you'd like to see some excellent imagery of what the rallies were like watch the propaganda movie "Triumph of the Will" on YouTube. This and other films by Leni Riefenstahl were very influential. We saw an interesting photo the other day in the Schindler factory museum of the filmmaker while she was in Poland. She had quite a distressed look on her face watching an officer shoot a captive.

Next we drove past the Nuremberg center. Looks like some nice things in there, though the city was heavily bombed so much is new and unremarkable. We headed to the court house where the trials were held. You can see the court room, which is still in use.

The museum is excellent, going into quite a bit of detail about the tribunal, including the evidence, judges, defense strategies, lawyers, media, verdicts, etc. A must see if you have any interest in law. Of course most of the major perpetrators were hung, but I hadn't realized that there were quite a number of additional trials. Many high ranking military and civilian officials got off very lightly. IG-Farben (they made the gas at Aushwitz), Bayer, BASF - lots of names you'd recognize.

From there we headed to Rothenburg, our next overnight stop.