Bastogne WWII Museum and Monument, Durbuy, Brussels, Mannekin Pis, Laundry, Dancing

We did get to visit the city of Bastogne, Belgium. There they have a really great WWII museum we were able to see.  You followed the lives of 4 different people and how they survived the war.  It was for informative and laid out really well. At the end of the museum you got to walk out and see the WWII Battle of the Bulge Monument--formerly known as the Mardasson Memorial. This is a monument honoring the memory of American soldiers wounded or killed during the WWII’s Battle of the Bulge.   Here’s the trail out to the memorial:

It is laid out in the shape of a five-pointed American star.  

Each state was listed.  Here’s Utah:

You can usually go to the top of the monument, but they were doing construction so we weren’t able to go to the top.

You can also look out into the countryside where all these battles took place:

At the base of the monument there was a crypt with three altars--one altar for each religion--Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish.

After leaving the War Museum we drove over to a very small, quaint city call Durbuy.  We walked around the town on the cobbled streets to see what was around.  There was an old castle.  We weren’t able to go inside because it was a private residence, but it was still cool to see from the outside:

Here’s another view from the side: 

Here’s another view of the castle from a bridge:

There was also this cool rock formation called Rocher de la Falize:

We stopped to grab something to eat, however, the lady manning the counter did not like us.  She helped everyone around us intentionally skipping us.  I guess she didn’t like English speakers.  Anyway, this Dutch lady behind us in line took pity on us and placed an order for us.  Once the worker found out the order was for us, she served everyone else and eventually got to us, but it was a LONG time.  Oh well.  I got some fries with fry sauce and Aaron got a fancy bratwurst hotdog.

They had a really cool place called Topiary Park.  It had a bunch of topiaries in different formations.  Some were really cool, some were just.....interesting--haha!

That evening we had to do some laundry.  It has been over 20+ years since we have had to use a laundry mat--haha!  Good times!

Sarah had a dance performance back at home.  Some good friends were willing to help her get ready with doing her hair and makeup.  They then take her to the performance and brought her home!! Thank you Maile and Mike!! They sent us some pictures of her dances, too.

We had a chance to stop by Brussels.  We only had a few hours to see the city late one afternoon/evening so we made the most of it. 

We stopped by to see the Port de Hal.  It is a very old remnant of a medieval entrance into Brussels.  It actually is a museum, but we didn’t have time to visit the museum part so we just walked around the outside:

We stopped by to see the Palace of Justice.  The building was pretty cool looking so we walked around it.

Here’s some more pictures you can see how intricate it was:

Close to the Palace of Justice is this Belgian Infantry Memorial.  It stands for the Belgian Foot soldiers who fought in WWI and WWII. 

A skyline view of Brussels:

We saw the Eglise Notre-Dame du Sablon which translates to
Church of Our Blessed Lady of the Sablon. It is a church build in 15th century.

The inside was pretty:

Palais Royal de Bruxelles which is the Royal Palace of Brussels.  It is the official palace of the king and queen, but the royal family doesn’t actually live here, though:

They did have guards marching in front of the building which were cool to watch for a few minutes.

The view from Mont des Arts which translates to ‘hill of the arts’.  This separates the upper and lower parts of Brussels.  You can see the spire of the Town Hall in the middle of the picture:

Here’s the Grand Place which is the heart of the city:

Most of the buildings around here date back to the late 1600s:

Next we walked over to the Mannekin Pis statue was originally made back in 1619.  The name Mannekin Pis translates into Little Man Pee.  Although I don’t get the appeal of a peeing statue, we stopped to see it because we were close and it is famous.  The statue is only 2 feet tall.  It can get dressed in different outfits according to which holiday is occurring.  This time there was no holiday so he is just au naturel the day we saw it.

There supposedly is another statue of a girl peeing as well as a dog peeing, too, but we didn’t get a chance to see those statues.

There is a copy of Mannekin Pis in a scene in the movie ’The Money Pit’.  That’s where I recognized it from--haha:

We did stop by and try out a yummy waffle topped with strawberries and ice cream:

Earlier that day while Aaron and the guys were at work, his last day of work in Europe, I went shopping with the wives and picked up a sampler pack of Belgian chocolates.  That evening Aaron and I tried a few of them out. They were delicious.

Aaron and I were leaving for Germany early the next morning.  We booked a hotel right by the train station so we wouldn’t have to lug our suitcases very far before getting them on the train.  However, when we got to our hotel we realized it was not in a good area of town.  We didn’t dare go out after it started getting dark.  Instead we just people watched through our window.  It was pretty interesting.  Here was our view: