Bastogne

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This morning I drove south from the Waterloo area into the heart of the Ardennes region of Belgium. My goal here was to visit Bastogne, the town where the American army, led by the 101st Airborne Division, held out against the last major German offensive in the West - what has come to be called The Battle of the Bulge. There is a restored Sherman tank on the main square in front of the tourist information office (see picture) and a lot of the town's economy is based on Bulge tourism. I visited the new and well-done Bastogne War Museum which recounts the entire history of WWII with a Belgian slant and with a large section devoted to the Bulge (see picture). Next to it is the American Memorial which is impressive for its large size (see picture). I prefer the smaller, more too-the-point memorial to the 101st Airborne's "Easy" Company located in the nearby town of Foy (see picture). Easy Company was made famous by Stephen Ambrose and his book "Band of Brothers" (and Steven Spielberg's series of the same name probably helped, too!)

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