4 Countries in 2 Days

Our icy nights with Dagobert are coming to an end soon. It has been freezing and foggy in Northern France and the low countries and we've been trying to hotel up as much as possible. Last night we got stuck without a hotel in Luxembourg and it was the coldest night of the trip so far. Tonight we are near Maastricht but in the last 24 hours we've been in France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and now the Netherlands.




It's hard to complain about the cold too much after visiting the war sites in Verdun, France. Spending 10 hours in a cold van doesn't compare much to spending months in a frozen trench in wartime. Verdun was on the Western Front in WWI, and is considered one of the most gruesome and drawn-out battles in history. The area was fertile farmland prior to the war but because of the intense shelling, over a million german artillery rounds in the first ten hours, it became a cratered wasteland. It's amazing to drive along and for 30km look into the forest which has grown back and see nothing but hilly, cratered land. There isn't one level patch of ground anywhere. There are still some remains of the famed trenches left disappearing into the forest.



Occasionally you'll pass signs pointing to where a village was with its name followed by detruit (destroyed) and look and see nothing but craters. There are still a few old French forts left, with twisted metal everywhere.







The French were said to have lost as many as 70,000 troops in a single day in Verdun. The battle lasted 300 days and technically the French "won", but at a huge cost in lives and equipment. Two-thirds of the French who fought in WWI served time in Verdun. The military cemetery had crosses as far as the eye could see.




I've always found those jokes about French cowardice pretty funny. My favorite is the classified ad listing. For Sale: 1 used French military rifle, never fired, dropped once. I still think the joke is funny but after spending a freezing day touring the war grounds and seeing old movie footage, I'm not sure why we tell that joke.

We headed North from Verdun into Luxembourg, more to tick it off the "countries visited" list than anything else. It's very hilly and green and judging by the number of luxury cars must be pretty wealthy. We then stopped in Bastogne, Belgium and saw some more war stuff, this time from WWII. The kids climbed on a Sherman tank that was disabled and abandoned in a field nearby. It's now in a square in the town which has a memorial to the American 101st Airborne, who the Belgians still are thankful for liberating them from the Germans. We all felt proud, climbing on the tank as Belgians read the plaques describing the battle.






The gash from the artillery round that disabled the tank. I'm not really sure how the crew fared. After leaving Bastogne, we hit the freeway and headed for Maastricht, where we were glad to find a nice little warm hotel.