My trip to the WWI and WWII sights was much more than I expected. Although I was originally excited to go, I was not prepared for all the really cool places I would see and basically relive. We left Brussels bright and early on a Saturday morning, so thank God I made it a movie night the evening prior. Our first stop was at the famous Battle of the Bulge and although it was insightful I was expecting a little more “ohh” and “ahh”. Then it began…

We left for Luxemburg and stopped at an American cemetery where General Patton is buried. It reminded me very much of Arlington Cemetery in Washington, DC, but this was in the middle of a forest and housed the grave of the heroic Patton. I was quite impressed. At this point, we were already plagued with rain and it basically never ended but it kind of suited the theme of the trip: gloomy and solemn.

We then visited the Maginot Line where the French dug up tunnels along their borders in WWI to protect themselves from the Germans, but of course that wasn’t used and eventually went under German control. The tunnels were massive and went on for miles and we were able to go inside and see how they survived daily life since it was like living in a submarine. We even got to see how the automatics weapons would rise out of the ground and shoot their targets…seemed unreal. At the end of the day we visited the famous city of Metz in France and toured some cathedrals before we finally headed to our hostel. Before heading to sleep, we all went out for some drinks and needless to say that some drank a little too much since we heard them chuck it all back up in the middle of the night…gross, I know.

We then went to Verdun and saw the Ossuary at Douaumont which looked like Arlington Cemetery again, but had a huge ossuary in the middle with the actual bones of soldiers. It was extremely morbid and disturbing to see all those millions of bones that once belonged to people.

Once we left, my friends and I dashed to a nearby Chinese restaurant to eat up since our dinner the night before was insufficient and left us starving. Later that night we went to Reims and tried new and fresh champagne. Of course, I bought a bottle since, afterall, where else can you get original and true champagne!!!???

The next day we headed to see another cathedral and shopped around until we jumped on the bus and headed to see where the armistices were signed for both the end of the worlds wars and that’s when I was really taken back. How many people can say they stood in the same room as to where an all out world war ended??? It was a speechless moment for me, needless to say. The WWI armistice was signed in a train car in the middle of nowhere in order to prevent an attack and WWII was signed in war room that was still in tact. After that we got on that big ole bus and head back to Belgium.