Our plans are to head towards Vienna by driving thru the Alps, but we decided to pick up a couple of places that we have been meaning to visit, but always seem to just miss. So today found us in Bastogne Belgium. This place has been on my list of places to visit since we first started coming but we always just missed it.
It was an easy drive over to Bastogne, and while the traffic was not light it never slowed down the whole trip. We arrive at the campground around 1:30 and headed over to the museum for the battle as soon as we checked in.
The Battle of Bastogne that the museum is dedicated to took place in December and January of 1944. The battle was the last offensive that the German Army tried in WWII, the overall campaign became known as the Battle of the Bulge. It initially caught the American forces in the area by surprise and the Germans reconquered a significant area of Belgium around Bastogne causing heavy casualties to the American defenders. The key to stopping the German attack was a stand taken by the 101st Airborne and 10th Armored Divisions at Bastogne. For about a week they were surrounded in the town which was a key transportation hub that the Germans needed to take. Despite all of the German efforts the American forces prevented the Germans from capturing the town. The battle of the Bulge caused the most casualties of any battle fought in WWII by American forces.
The museum tells the story of the battle thru the eyes of 4 participants, an American paratrooper from the 101st. A German Grenadier from one of the attacking Panzer units, and two Belgian civilians a young teenager and a school teacher from a nearby village. The museum is very well done and the stories of the four are interwoven in a very interesting way.
It took us over 3 hours to get thru the museum and we really enjoyed ourselves. As you leave the museum there is a monument built by the people of the Bastogne shortly after the war in honor of the defenders. The monument is a simple series of columns with all 50 US States at the top and a list of the units who defended Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge.
In our own personal battle the mouse is still present in François. Apparently Dutch mice don’t eat peanut butter like American mice so we have now added bits of Gouda cheese to the mouse trap to hopefully appeal to his Dutch sensibilities and entice him into the trap tonight. Last night he taunted us by walking right past the trap to try to chew into some of Tons Thai spices. Fortunately he didn’t succeed or we would have had to go nuclear on him.