Traffic jam in Bastogne

After leaving the memorial, our GPS unit, under our observant eyes, took us through Bastogne. It was a sunny Sunday, and everybody seemed to wander through its main street. Incredible to think that just a few decades ago this town was levelled to the ground during the war.

Battle of the Bulge Memorial

The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Battle of the Ardennes, was a major WWII battle for the liberation of Europe. As the allies were pushing hard towards Berlin, the Germans conter-attacked. They crossed the advancing allied lines, creating a bulge. The Germans encountered resistance by the Americans at the town of Bastogne, in Belgium. The Germans asked the Americans to surrender, getting as answer a single word, 'nuts.' They must have taken that as a serious offense because they brought hell to the American troop in Bastogne, which resisted until the American army led by Patton (who else) came kicking butts to the rescue.

The GPS is right but the GIS is wrong

Leaving Vianden Castle we took the road towards Batogne, in Belgium, to visit the Bastogne Battle Memorial. Our GPS navigator, which we brought with us from Canada, with the most updated map for Europe, took us through a narrow and windy road, covered by a forest and used by crazy bikers and even crazier motor-bikers! Overall enjoyable even though, unlike the motor-bikes, we could not drive fast.

As we were approaching Bastogne, the GPS unit started to indicate a dirty road as the direction to a major landmark! What the heck! Look at the picture and see the road. Now, look to the GPS unit display and you will see the flag indicating the destination. It is not the GPS fault, but an error of the system that manages the positional information. Most likely its databank has this dirty road as paved road. Anyhow, the human interface is still important. LOL.

Vianden Castle

What a beauty! I paid off getting lost in Belgium (see next post).

Vianden Castle was constructed between the 11th and 14th centuries, on the same spot used by a Roman castellum and as a refuge of the Carolingians (Charles Martel, Charlemange and co.). Later, during the 15th century, it was the home of Henry I of Vianden, who started this House that became influential in Europe. Later, it passed on the House of Nassau and to the Principality of Orange (from Holland). In 1820, during the reign of King Willian I of Holland, it was sold piece by piece and fell into a state of ruin. Only in 1977 the Luxembourg government started to restore it, very much like what was done in Louisburg. Thanks goodness they did it. It is much better to visit a real castle then just a pile of rubble. Vianden Castle is today one of the best preserved, largest and most beautiful feudal residences of the romanesque and gothic periods in Europe.

Luxembourg countryside

On Sunday we left Luxembourg returning to Delft. We took a secondary road North towards Vianden Castle. It gave us the chance to admire the countryside of Luxembourg. Very beautiful.

The scenery sometimes reminded us of PEI, with those large, green fields. And remembering PEI, my son remembered our dog, Fluffy. Fluffy, like Kim and Julie, is an authentic PEI-er.

American Cemetery and Patton

The American Cemetery was among the several places we saw in Luxemburg. Visiting a cemetery is not necessarily what I would call tourism, but this is a landmark. And it is very moving, I have to admit. Looking at all those crosses, I started to imagine so many young people crossing the Atlantic to fight, and die, for that very basic Western value: freedom. We owe a lot to those guys. It makes me wonder if we, as a civilization, have not become complacent towards ideologies that favour submission rather than freedom.

The picture shows a small cross, the place where General Patton is burried. Both myself and my son admire Patton. He had no excuses to have his job done. We need more Pattons! My favourite quote from Patton is: "No bastard ever won a war dying for his country. He won by making the other dumb poor bastard die for his country."

A few other quotes from Paton:

"Nobody ever defended anything successfully, there is only attack and attack and attack some more."

"May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't."

“Never let the enemy pick the battle site.”

"Americans love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle. "

A view of Luxembourg

There are so many beautiful pictures of Luxembourg that I do not know which one to choose. Well, I picked this one showing a lower part of the city known as the Grunt. Downtown is seen in the background.

We enjoyed such a wonderful day today and we could walk around the city for several hours.

We will have dear memories from here.

Dandelions

They are here too!

The 800 of Luxembourg

Luxembourg is a tiny little country. It was not like that in the past. Actually, it used to be more than 3 times larger. But then, agreements were signed between 1659 and 1839 in which Luxembourg had to give away pieces of its territory to France, Germany and Belgium. What kind of treaties were those I do not know. Agreements in which one country gives away territory to another is far away from fair. Sounds more like stealing candy from a baby. But, this is History. Even with these agreements and its pledge of neutrality, Luxembourg was still occupied by the Germans twice during the two World Wars.

Today, Luxembourg is part of NATO, with a contingency of 800 soldiers. NATO is lucky, eh?

I believe this tradition of came with World War II. A contingency of Luxembourgers joined the invasion of Normandy in D-Day. Hollywood may want to make a movie about that, maybe calling it The 800 of Luxembourg.

University of Luxembourg

On Friday I had the privilege to visit two colleagues at the University of Luxembourg: Olivier Francis and Tonie vamDam. It has been two years since I last saw Olivier and it was the first time I met Tonie. Lots of technical discussions. And a good time.

Travelling to Luxembourg

Closer to the weekend we travelled to Luxembourg, where I visited two colleagues at the university. We rented a car and travelled a distance equivalent to Fredericton-Halifax. The difference is that we covered 3 countries. It was supposed to be a 3.5 hour-long trip, but we got 2 hours traffic jam going through the outskirts of Rotterdam.

On our way, we did not see any of the traditional wind mills. We saw, though, several of the newer type, like the ones shown.