US Government map of Belgium.
US Government map of Belgium.
US Government map of Luxembourg.
We had crossed into Belgium after driving across France most of the day and then spending the night in a cheap hotel near the Luxembourg airport.
Luxembourg is a small and relatively old country. It was founded in 963 out of the Holy Roman Empire. The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg was established in 1815 as an independent state under the control and protection of the Netherlands. It became more independent in the process of losing some Ardennes territory to Belgium in 1839, and gained full independence in 1867.
Patton's grave at the American Cemetery.
Luxembourg is the only country still operating as a Grand Duchy. And a note to the confused (as I was) — "Duchy" is pronounced as if it were derived from the same source as the word "duchess," and it is not pronounced like "ducky"!
The next morning we stopped at the nearby U.S. cemetery, where George Patton is buried along with 5,075 other American service members, most of whom died in the Battle of the Bulge.
The cemetery holds the remains of 5,076 U.S. service members, covering some 50.5 acres (204,000 meters2). It is very nicely run by the American Battle Monuments Commission.
The cemetery is very close to the airport, and as we were staying in a chain hotel near the airport, it was right there for the first stop in the morning.
Then it was north and across the Belgian border, to Bastogne!
Here we are at the museum outside Bastogne. That's me on the left, Jeff in the middle, and Tim on the right.
Here you see the square in Bastogne. There are plenty of hotels, restaurants, and bars all around the central square.
We stayed right on the central square, where we got a triple room in a nice hotel for €105. The picture above is from our window, looking down across the square. You can see that it's almost solid restaurants along that side of the square.
An old American tank serves as a memorial in another corner of the square.
There is a nice museum on the edge of town. That's where we took the picture of us sitting on the tank, at the start of this section.
Next to the museum is the large star-shaped Mardasson Memorial, honoring the memory of the 76,890 American soldiers wounded or killed during the Battle of the Bulge.
The memorial has great views over the surrounding countryside.
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| © Bob Cromwell Feb 2012. Created with /bin/vi and ImageMagick, hosted on OpenBSD with Apache. Root password available here, privacy policy here. |
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