Bastogne Travel Forum

My friend & I will arrive in Brussels May 5th. We wish to go to Bastogne and tour the memorials, cemetery, historical center, etc. 1)Is the historical center, etc., open on Monday? 2)do you recommend Americans driving from Brussels to Bastogne in a rental car, and tour on our own, or, do you recommend a tour guide to pick us up in Brussels, drive us to Bastogne, and give us a tour of the area. If you recommend a tour guide, which one do you recommend?

1) Apparently so, see http://www.bastognehistoricalcenter.be/index.php?lg=fpdb/bastogne_en&page1=e-infos_pratiques.htm
2) If you pay a tour guide to drive you from Brussels, a) they are unlikely to be specialists in Bastogne and b) you would be paying them for transport and driving, not guiding. Personally I would take the train but if you want to drive, that's up to you. There is an audioguide included in the admission charge to the historical centre, so I would guess you can probably do most things on your own but if you want a local guide, try http://users.skynet.be/bastogne.battle.bulge.guided.tours/index_fichiers/Page355.htm
See also http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9900E2DC1538F93AA35751C1A962948260&sec=travel&spon=&pagewanted=all

I agree with gami that there is little point in taking a tour from Brussels - either drive or take the train (and perhaps pick up a car nearby).

My father (a veteran of that battle, who spent a night in Bastogne but was able to slip away west since the Germans wanted the crossroads more than a lot of prisoners) drove through the area some 10(?) years ago with my mother, as part of a longer car trip from Austria, Switzerland, France, and the Low Countries, and he was delighted to have found some of the places he remembered...like the ditch on the side of the road in which he spent all day at the outset of the battle, with a German machine gun nest across the road (good thing that darkness fell early in December 1944, so he and his buddies got away).

So I am thinking that if you are at all up to driving in Europe (I would think that in this area, there would not be a problem), that having a car would be a big benefit...but not necessarily driving all the way from Brussels (your choice)...

Bill