Bastogne

This weekend Rich and I traveled to Bastogne. It is about three hours away from Brussels and the ride there was so beautiful. There were so many huge fields of cows and trees with all their bright colors. Fall is my favorite time of year! Once we reached Bastogne we tried to find a tour that would take us to the sites. The lady at the information center (in really broken Enlgish I might add) told us that there were no tours running that day (of course!) but we could walk to the sites. So like anyone else we thought well sure it is a beautiful day and walking never hurt anybody so we took off! At first it was ok because it only took about 20 minutes to get to the first monument which was made to honor all the American soldiers that died during the Battle of the Bulge in Bastogne. After that we went to their Historical Museum and saw all the uniforms, weapons, and other cool war stuff! Everything was great up to this point until we started our trek to the next site where an hour later we found ourselves on this tiny road in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by cows! When we finally reached the next monument we were dreading the walk back and not too thrilled we tried WALKING everywhere! We should have known! But by some miracle, as we were taking pictures by the second monument a car pulled up with two men from America one a soldier and one a marine asking us where the next site was. We told them where they needed to head and slipped in the fact that we had been walking everywhere and the next thing we knew we were getting chauffeured to the remaining sites we wanted to see! At first I was pretty wary jumping in the car with two strange men, but we ended up having a blast with them and they couldn't have been nicer! The last site we went to see were the foxholes in the forest of the Ardennes. The soldiers stayed in these throughout the Battle of the Bulge to protect themselves and they are still there today! It was crazy to see. We walked out into the woods and you could see these foxholes everywhere among all the trees. I kept imagining what it must have been like. Especially since it is only November and already freezing outside! They spent a month holding back the Germans in the middle of the winter waiting out and sleeping in these foxholes! Incredible! This trip ended up being one we will never forget and it truly made me appreciate even more our American soldiers that fought so bravely in Bastogne!