As I entered the border into Belgium, I had the sudden realization that I’d be going to the French part of Belgium, and was excited to try my French. It pretty much failed right away the moment I arrived. An old couple asked me something I didn’t understand (I assume directions), and I could only tell them my French wasn’t good… And then at lunch my French was convincing enough to get seated for lunch at a local Ardennaise restaurant, at least up until the waitress asked me a follow up question on my order – I didn’t know how to answer with “medium rare” for how I wanted my bison steak cooked. Apparently it’s “à point”.

If it weren’t for the events of the war, this town might’ve continued to be the sleepy town. Even just walking from the parking lot to the main street, I was already greeted by memorials related to the Battle of the Bulge – even the parking lots were named after generals like Patton and McAuliffe. Several museums have popped up in the area like the 101st Airborne Museum, the Bastogne Barracks, and the Bastogne War Museum.

I began my tour by first visiting the 101st Airborne Museum. The museum described the events surrounding the battle and the contributions of the 101st Airborne Division through a series of dioramas that even included the sound effects to create a sense of immersion. But the main attraction there was the “bombing simulation”. I entered into the basement of the museum into a dark room, posing as a cellar turned bomb shelter. An announcement, voiced by a veteran of the 101st Airborne, described the bombing raids that occurred during the siege. And then the simulation started. Sounds of air raid sirens, airplane propellers, anti-aircraft guns, and exploding bombs filled the room. It continued constantly, even if you wanted it to stop. The muzzle flashes of the anti aircraft guns filled the small cellar windows, and the lamp hanging on the ceiling swung around to add to the immersion. Not long later, there were sounds of crying children and barking dogs. And even then the bombs continued. The simulation lasted only five minutes and it was already enough to show the scariness of the situation.

Next, I stopped by the Bastogne Barracks – but it just so happened the vehicle exhibition was closed, which I read was the main attraction of the place. So I only stayed outside and took a peek in.

Now for the main attraction of Bastogne, that was the Bastogne War Museum, an immersive historical museum dedicated to preserving and commemorating the events of the Battle of the Bulge, and the broader context of the war itself. The museum is intended to be heard on an audio guide, and presents narratives from fictional characters from different walks of life during the war such as an American soldier, a German soldier and Belgian civilians. Lastly, the ticket also includes entry to the Bois Jacques, the forest where the 101st Airborne Division held their ground during the battle. Their foxholes are still present even today.

Check here to see more of Bastogne

Bastogne

The Battle of the Bulge (known in German as the Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein – Operation Watch on the Rhine) was the last major German offensive in the western front during World War II. The Germans attempted to use this offensive to break the Allied offensive on that front and force the western allies to negotiate a peace treaty. The territory taken by the Germans during the offensive resembled a “bulge” on the map, hence its name.

During the battle, Bastogne was surrounded by German forces, and when the Germans asked the Americans in Bastogne to surrender, Brigadier General McAuliffe famously answered “nuts!” to the German request.

We stayed overnight in the same farmhouse which served as the former field headquarters of the legendary American 101st Airborne Division during the battle. The staff there mentioned that the same family still owns the farmhouse to this day and that some of them had perished in concentration camps during the course of the war.

They even decorated in the interior with old helmets and ammo boxes.

I wouldn’t consider the place in the middle of nowhere, but maybe trying to find it at night isn’t the best idea.

Just look for the tank turret out front I guess!

We tried going to the Bastogne Museum, but little did we know that the Bastogne War Museum was closed between 20. January 2020 to 19. February 2020. I knew it was low season, but I didn’t think it was so not busy that the entire museum would be closed for a whole month! The only exhibit we got to see was the East Germany open air exhibit outside showing off art painted on the tank, slabs of the Berlin Wall on old Trabants.

Nearby the museum was the Mardasson Memorial, a monument dedicated to the American soldiers who fought the Battle of the Bulge. Inside the memorial, carved panels tell the story of the battle.

The weather really cooperated with us today! We had clear blue skies all day, and got to see the the thin layers of morning frost over the vast farm fields.

Liège

The weather didn’t cooperate for long though because it became like this on our way to Liège…

The thing that surprised me about Liège was how seedy it was. We were hanging out around Place St Lambert, and it felt like people were subtlely eyeing us from the side of the street. In once instance, the moment we turned corner, a man glanced at us and immediately started walking in our direction. I glanced at him some more and eventually he went away. Yeah, we didn’t stay long in Liège.

I think one way to explain why it was so seedy was that Wallonia was no longer Belgium’s center of industry like it was in the late 19th and early 20th century. As the industry went to neighbouring Flanders, the local economy suffered.

Drielandenpunt

Next up, Drielandenpunt, the triple point between Germany, Netherlands, and Belgium. It’s also simultaneously the highest point in the entire Netherlands, a miniscule 322.5m above sea level.

Aachen

Not far away from the Drielandenpunt, was the westernmost city in Germany, Aachen. This is where 31 Holy Roman Emperors were crowned. Charlemagne (his bust pictured below) himself had his imperial medieval residence here.

The Aachen Cathedral shown below was the burial location of Charlemagne. The chapel shown in the middle is the location of the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperors. Despite the name, the Holy Romans Empire was neither holy nor Roman, nor an empire.

As a “holy” empire they weren’t exactly unified by religion. It wasn’t solely catholic and had a significant population of Protestants.

It wasn’t really Roman since for most of its history it didn’t rule over what the Roman Empire ruled over (although it did for a time) and its centre of power was ultimately in Germany. Arguably, the Byzantines or the Eastern Roman Empire was the true successor to the Roman Empire. They were a part of the Roman Empire when it fell and it continued the empire in the east until it fell in the 15th century to the Ottoman Turks.

Technically, it was an empire (at least officially) for a time, until their defeat in the Thirty Years War (1618 – 1648), which resulted in the kingdoms within the empire effectively receiving independence from the empire.

For lunch, I finally got the chance to eat Eisbein (bottom dish), a pork knuckle! It’s simmered for several hours in broth and served with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes! If you like meat, this is the dish for you. The above dish is a schnitzel – thin slice of meat (thinned via pounding) that’s breaded and fried.

Bonn

From Aachen, we drove to Bonn to meet up with a friend, who moved to Bonn from Taiwan to pursue a PhD in chemical engineering. We were so full from lunch, we only had a small snack for dinner at a local pub.

Since it was a Bavarian pub, it sold Bavarian specialities like weisswurst (shown on bottom – literally white sausage). It’s a sausage made from veal! The bread in the basket is a very delicious German pretzel. It’s got a nice cripsy outside flavoured with salt with a soft inside.

After dinner, we explored the city a little bit and visited the birthplace of Ludwig van Beethoven. The house is one of the few remaining middle-class homes of the era.

Bonn is also the world headquarters of an amazing brand of gummy bears – Haribo! It was founded by Hans Riegel in Bonn, hence the name Haribo. People who hear about Haribo for the first time usually think it comes from Japan, and are almost always surprised to find out it’s German! The outlet store not far from Bonn city centre has a MASSIVE selection of all sorts of Haribo variants! It’s got gummy bears, sour worms, licorice, and more! I definitely recommend the gummy bears (of course), the frogs, coca colas, and the Phantasia pack!

That concludes our 7th day. The next day we’d travel to more German cities – Cologne and Düsseldorf.

Photos:

• Bastogne
• Liège
• Drielandenpunt
• Aachen
• Bonn

Our second day takes us to Oosterscheldekering, Ypres, and Dunkirk.

Oosterscheldekering (Eastern Scheldt storm surge barrier)

We began our day two heading back into the Netherlands, to a network of storm surge barriers, designed to protect the Netherlands from flooding. Large sets of doors can open and close to control the water flow coming in from the ocean. They’re important because most of the Netherlands sits a few metres above sea level or lower, and thus are prone to flooding.

As we drove in the area of Oosterscheldekering, we encountered a lot of windmills spinning noticeably in the wind. And I wondered where all the old traditional windmills went, as in the ones with a tower made of brick with four rectangular fan blades . Netherlands has a stereotype of having a lot of them. We barely saw any of them and then it occurred to me that most of them were probably upgraded to use modern technology.

Ypres

Our next destination, Ypres, is known for the many battles that occurred there during the First World War, where the Germans introduced chemical weapons in the battlefield in the form of poison gas. During the course of the war, the town was destroyed, mostly by artillery fire.

The town was rebuilt after the war using German war reparations, with the main square following the original design as closely as possible. The In Flanders’ Fields Museum (the big building in the above picture) is a museum dedicated to the First World War.

Dunkerque (Dunkirk)

Our final destination for the day was the French port city of Dunkirk, known for the role it played during the evacuation of Allied forces from France. The Germans had achieved a breakthrough in France and had surrounded the bulk of Allied forces around Dunkirk. The German airforce was tasked to destroy these forces, so that the Germany army could conserve its ground forces for other operations, but the Germans failed to destroy the Allied forces and over 338000 soldiers were successfully evacuated to Britain.

That night, the locals were having a festival, called the “Bal du Chat Noir”, probably loosely translated as “The Black Cat Ball”. It’s so obscure that as of this writing, an English Wikipedia article for this festival doesn’t even exist. The French Wikipedia describes it as a festival to celebrate the opening of the carnival season (i.e. the Christian Carnival), and that it’s local to Dunkirk.

From what I can tell, it’s kind of like the Carnival in Cologne, where people party in the streets dressed up in costumes. There’s no shortage of reasons for people to party!

Stay tuned for day 3!

• Oosterscheldekering
• Ypres
• Dunkirk

The Hague (Den Haag)

The first stop is The Hague in the Netherlands. It’s the home of the International Court of Justice (pictured above). This is the international court that resolves international disputes that the UN is involved in. It was involved in well known cases such as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to judge the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide, and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to judge the perpetrators of crimes committed during the internal struggles in Yugoslavia that eventually led to its dissolution.

For lunch, we searched around for something to eat and we could try some herring since that’s a popular dish in the Netherlands. We found a street food stall near us not far from where we were and proceeded to go inside and order. One problem though… the entire menu was in Dutch and there was no English to be found anywhere. We stood there looking confused for a moment, before I piped up and simply asked the staff (knowing that the Netherlands has a very high degree of English literacy) what we should order. He simply replied, “herring sandwich!”. It’s raw herring preserved in a brine in a sandwich along with condiments such as raw onions and pickles. It’s got a nice fishy freshness to it (like sashimi), but a saltier and more sour flavour because of the brine. This is going to be one of those foods that I’ll crave once I leave and can’t get anywhere else.

Another cool place to visit in The Hague is the Madurodam – it’s a park built purely on minatures. Imagine famous landmarks in the Netherlands, like the canals of Amsterdam, old town city squares, and palaces, but in miniature form! As a fan of Lego, I can definitely appreciate looking at miniatures!

Rotterdam

Next, we drove to Rotterdam in the Netherlands and stopped by the Market Hall for more food (I’m always down to eat). This time, we had yet another Dutch speciality: the stroopwafel. It’s hard to say no to two thin crispy wafers with gooey caramel in between.

And because I really enjoy eating protein, I couldn’t resist trying some cured meat. I think this is more of a Spanish thing as opposed to Dutch thing though. I found the flavour way too salty for my tastes (and I use a lot of salt when cooking), but I’m not sure what it’s supposed to taste like.

The market hall also has a nice selection of spices – kind of apt considering their colonial past trading spice and other goods in the Dutch East Indies.

And of course cheese! It’s so nice to see all the wheels of cheese, in all these different colours and sizes.

Baarle-Hertog / Baarle-Nassau

After leaving Rotterdam, we headed towards Belgium – well kind of. The cool thing about Baarle-Hertog / Baarle-Nassau is that a border between Belgium and the Netherlands cuts right through the town in seemingly random spots. You could just be walking down the street along the main avenue of the town and randomly end up in the Netherlands, then in Belgium, and then back again.

On our way out of the town, we noticed lane lines that we hadn’t seen before in North America. At first, we didn’t know why the lines were painted like that, but upon closer analysis, the road is simply a road shared by both cars and bicycles and the red section shows where the bikes should be, and the grey area is the section where cars should be when passing a bicycle. By allocating a space for the car to pass, the cars don’t get too close to the cyclists, thus reducing the risk of an accident. How cool!

Antwerp

Soon, we were fully in Belgium in the city of Antwerp and took a stroll in the old town square. The buildings here look pretty Belgian because of the way the roof inclines – it’s as if there are little steps as opposed to a smooth incline (so-called stepped gables).

This concludes our successful first day of the trip! On day two, we will travel to Oosterscheldekering, Ypres, and Dunkirk.

Photos

• The Hague
• Rotterdam
• Baarle-Hertog
• Antwerp

Whenever one mentions the city of Brussels, a few things come to my mind, mainly chocolate and beer.  Before actually visiting the city, I really expected that sort of thing, but I was wrong…oh so wrong.

We left in the morning of the 11th in a very uneventful train ride that lasted for about six hours before we actually reached the city.  Upon arrival, we got off the train in a very typical looking European train station.  We walked around the city and found our hotel.  They assigned us a room for four people even though our party only had two people (we would have had more people if we could have arranged it in time).  The room even had a flat screen TV and a bathtub (not just a regular shower!).  What a great first impression.

After dropping off a few things, we went out to explore.  We didn’t really have a plan as to what we wanted to see, so we walked from one place to another with an attitude like, “hey, that looks cool, let’s go there.”  Using this method of exploring, we saw a few buildings with really cool architecture, like the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, and the Square Ambiorix.

After reaching the basilica, we realized that we ventured really far from the city center, so we decided to take the metro to the city center.  At the metro stop, we looked on the map to see which direction we needed to go in.  One of the local with his family waited at the metro stop and saw us looking at the map and so he explained how to get to the city center.  I suppose he could instantly tell that we were tourists.  The guy seemed nice, but almost too nice.  I found that kind of suspicious and we avoided him for the rest of the metro ride.

We went on the metro, and off we went.  A direct route to the city center didn’t exist from where we were so we had to transfer to a different train.  One thing I noticed right away at our transfer station was the fact that there were so many people trying to cram on a train.  I saw this and knew that could be trouble.  Before going to Brussels, I had read on the Canadian foreign affairs site about what to look out for in Belgium.  It explicitly warned travellers about pickpockets operating at metro stations.  Knowing this bit of information, I pretty much kept my hands in my pockets the whole time to prevent anybody from getting in there.

As I got on this crowded train, I did my best to get on the train while watching out for any petty thieves.  At one point, my mind wandered, and my hands left my pocket.  During the time between getting on the train and cramming on with everyone else, the dextrous hand of a pickpocket reached into the left front pocket of my jeans and grabbed hold of my precious wallet.  Not long after, I noticed my empty pocket and immediately knew what happened.  I had let my guard down for less than a minute and disaster struck.  In a panic, I looked around for where my wallet could have gone even though I knew that all of my attempts would prove futile.

I looked at my friend and simply said, “somebody stole my wallet”.  My friend then looked at me with an expression that said, “are you kidding me?”  Normally, I joke around a lot, but never about something like this.  I was dead serious.  I knew what I had to do next.  Call the credit card company to block my credit card and go to the police station to report the crime.  I didn’t really see a point in reporting the crime since they couldn’t really do anything to get my stuff back, but I might need the report as proof for losing the cards that I had in there.

I talked to the first staff member of the metro I found and asked him where one would go to report a crime.  I followed his instructions and when I arrived at the station, I found a police outpost.  I went inside to talk to the police about the crime, but they simply told me that they were closed for the day and directed me back to the place I came from for help.  Really?  Are the police in this city that incompetent?

Knowing that I couldn’t really get these people to help me, I went back to where I came from.  I went up to the information point and asked an employee there where I could go.  Two security guards came out and directed me to yet another police outpost.  This one had closed too.  Okay, whatever, so what if the police here suck?  At the very least, I had to call to cancel my credit card.  I asked the security guards where I could have access to a phone to cancel my card.  They led me to the nearest phone booth.  Really?  My wallet was stolen.  How could I possibly have any money to make a phone call?  They clearly weren’t very bright. 

Afterward, one of the security guards took out his cell phone and called a number for stopping credit cards.  After talking to the guy on the other end, I found that he could only block credit cards local to Belgium and he gave me a different number to call (I really hate bureaucracy).  The security guard looked at the number I just wrote down and just shook his head.  He probably didn’t want me calling it because it was a long distance number.  I guess he cared more about his phone bill than helping someone out.

The next thing they did was direct me to an actual police station nearby.  Luckily, they were still open when I arrived.  I borrowed their phone and called the number that the security didn’t let me call earlier.  The guy on the other end told me that this number only works for Visa cards.  I had a MasterCard.  I was given yet another number to call except this time, the number didn’t work.  I don’t know how I was able to interact with so many incompetent people in one day.  I thought about what I could do next and realized that I could call home and ask my parents for the correct number.  I briefly told them about what happened over the phone, assured that everything else was okay and that I didn’t lose my passport.  They gave me the number; I called it; and then got my card blocked.  I even arranged for a new card to be sent to me.

The next step thing to do was to get the police report.  I waited around for an hour or two and finally got everything done.  I basically told the guy what happened, where it happened, and what was in my wallet.  My wallet had 170 euros, driver’s license, my student ID, two bank cards, a credit card, my Bahn 25 card, and my Stuttgart metro pass.  By now it was 8:30 at night.  I hadn’t eaten since the morning either so I was immensely hungry.  Using money I borrowed from my friend, I went to eat at McDonald’s.  Afterward, I spent the rest of the night walking around the city.  Despite the fact that I wasn’t in the mood to do anything anymore, I still walked around the city and saw what I could.  During my walk, I could see how shady the city actually was.  Some parts of the city were dominated by shady streets full of foreign immigrants.  I suppose that’s the reason for why some people here need to resort to stealing to make a living.

The next morning, we took the first train out and went to Amsterdam.  We had already booked our accommodations there before leaving Germany, so it didn’t make sense to go home early.

When I told my friends this story about my wallet, a few of them found it really surprising that pickpockets managed to steal out of a front pocket.  It surprised me at the time too.  Some of my friends even shared stories about how someone they knew once got pickpocketed in Brussels too.  If only I had known that earlier.  I guess it’s like what my parents said afterward, “I learned my lesson the hard way and paid for it with my wallet.”

More photos here