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Published: June 14th 2017
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Geo: 50.2875, 6.18517
Today, we explored a little of the military history of this region - mainly WWII, but also medieval!
The Battle of the Bulge, said to be a major turning point of World War II, raged in St Vith and the surrounding areas at Christmas 1944 and the following fortnight. It remains the battle with the highest number of casualties for the USA. The casualties were terrible - Wikipedia suggests 90,000 American killed or wounded, and over 100,000 Germans. The battle was also played out in terrible freezing weather - apparently, engines needed to be started every 30 minutes to prevent the oil from congealing, and as the rain fell on us at 4 degrees, we couldn't help thinking of those poor soldiers.
At the monument at Bastogne, 76,000 American soldiers were remembered - there is a US tank in the middle of town, and a very striking monument in the shape of a star (engraved with the names of each US State). They are building a museum, which will be interesting next time. We climbed the two storey monument, to look out over the countryside. As an aside - at a monument to the thousands of Americans ("and one
brave Belgian nurse", the monument said!), there was a very touching poem...until we recognised it as the words to "I am Australian", changed to be "I'm a god-damned American"!
We then drove to La Roche en Ardenne - a very pretty little town, on the River Outhe. After lunch at a bar in town (yummy meatballs ardennois!) we went to the medieval castle ruins. It was used between the 9th and 18th centuries, although the guide suggested that most of the improvements were done during the rule of the French, in the 17th century! We wandered all over the ruins, in the vaulted castle rooms, and even read about the castle ghost (who only appears in summer, in the tourist season!) - a fight for the hand of the fair maiden between two unevenly matched knights won by weedy little Knight B, who turned out to be the jilted female lover of Knight A. B took the bride to the nuptial chamber, and they both jumped to their deaths.... They must love their little ghost here - what I initially thought were angels in the lights decorating the street were in fact, the ghost!
We then went to the Pottery and
Ham museum. Yep, you read that correctly. We were looking for the war museum, and found a surprisingly good multimedia presentation on the history of La Roche clay and pottery, and a tribute to the Ardennes ham. Gotta love Europe - just as we were reassuring G that the video wouldn't be "tragic", we saw the video detail the whack to the head of the pig and the slitting of its throat!
We then went to the war museum. In World War II, the town suffered severe damage. Having been liberated by the Allies in September 1944, the town was recaptured by the Germans in December, during the Battle of the Bulge. The subsequent Allied bombing raids resulted in the town being liberated once more in January 1945, but left much of the town destroyed, and 116 residents dead. The Scottish Black Watch soldiers were here, with the Americans. The boys were fascinated by the Enigma code machine, and the flame thrower...
On the road home, we saw a pretty little deer - frightened, it ran in our lights long enough for everyone in the car to see it. Home to Jonathan and Drama, for some fantastic pea and ham soup!
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