Europe Trip 2010

Arrived in Frankfurt on Monday after a plane ride through Chicago. Seven hours!

We get our three vans to cart the 27 of us to Belgium.

We made only one rest stop on our journey passing through Luxembourg to Belgium.

A beautiful crop was this Rapeseed, an oil producing plant.

Rapeseed oil is not eaten but is used for lubrication.

We do eat its the genetic modification which is called canola

in the US. We saw many fields of this.

We saw many small towns, each with a church.

The houses are close to the road and most are attached.

We saw this type of village and homes throughout

our travels by the back roads.

Europeans are very much into alternate energy sources.

We saw lots of windmills like these.

We arrived in the very small village of Cugnon sur Semois.

The hotel was very nice.

The village did have a church just across the road from the hotel.

We also found this mill on our walk through the town.

There were houses like this one. Small, detached.

And there were large ones too.

But this was also typical of the others we saw with homes on the edge of the road.

Some of the group braved the river for an ankle wetting.

We saw lots of horses in the vacation area.

The next morning we traveled a short distance to Bastogne.

Small cars parked on the sidewalk.

The parking area had a small visitors center with this tank out front.

We walked the street to see the city before going to the WW II Memorial Site.

There is a museum, a crypt and this large structure to memorialize

the American sacrifice at Bastogne.

The museum shows a film and has large exhibits.

And small ones too.

Lunch in this small shop back in the town center.

The Bouillon Castle built by the grandfather of Godefroy of the Crusades fame.

The view of the Semois River and town from the castle.

The river nearly surrounds the castle.

The way in has two drawbridges and an iron portcullis.

Two of our group fell into the hands of the torturers.

This is the wheel turned by people to open the doors.

The prison was tight.

Pretty bird.

Peek aboo.

Nice surroundings.

Which end do we point at the enemy?

Easy place to defend. Hard to heat.

Very brave. Is that a smile or a grimace?

A bald eagle. The bird guy had them all doing tricks.

And then there was chocolate!