Bastogne, Belgium

This weekend we were supposed to be in Rome at the Communication Seminar.

With the COVID-19 pandemic escalating and travel restrictions starting up, the seminar was cancelled. Since Dave had already cleared his schedule (for the most part), we headed to Belgium.

It's still so foreign (ha ha) to me that we can be in a different county in a matter of hours.

As we were about 30 minutes into our trip, the snow started coming down. We didn't even think to look at the forecast before starting out. We followed the snow plow for miles!

Dave had scheduled a few appointments for Thursday afternoon, but I had to keep texting them and pushing the appointments to a later time. Our drive time was doubled.

The chilly view from our hotel window. We were glad we upgraded to a nicer room.

It was great having a nice restaurant at the hotel. We enjoyed a delicious dinner and buffet breakfast.

This light and delicate little pastry caught our attention on a walk around town. 

The Battle of the Bulge was the last major German offensive of World War II and Bastogne is a small city in Belgium that ended up becoming a major stumbling block to the German push through Belgium.  Bastogne was stubbornly held by a small contigent of U.S. soldiers who refused to surrender even though they were heavily outnumbered and under supplied.  One of the most famous battles of World War II happened right in this area.  This museum is dedicated to that battle.

Joanne loved her 3D glasses in the theater.

Having headsets really enhanced the tour as we learned about this era.

World War II was essentially lost at this point and this battle was a desperate attempt by Hitler to divide the Allied troops and capture their main supply seaport in Belgium.  The goal was to have leverage to broker a good peace treaty.

This American General responded to the German General's demand for surrender of his troops by famously responding, "NUTS".  Meaning "not a chance".

Selfies are not something we do very well.

This American tank took a direct hit from a German Panzer tank, ouch!

These shocking numbers are referring to World War II in total, not this battle alone.

It wasn't too long after the Germans lost this battle that Hitler took his own life and the war with Germany ended.

Even though Germany and Italy surrendered in Europe, the war raged on in the Pacific against Japan.  Sadly, it took the dropping of two atom bombs and the loss of many innocent Japanese lives for the war in the Pacific to end too.

A huge memorial for the American soldiers that fought here.  Each of the 50 states were represented.

We just had to try this a tasty little cookie. 

Sunday morning, we drove to Luxembourg to attend church.