Sometime you’ll have to explain about growing up in "whales."

This tour no longer exists, but it’s I’d love to follow this route on my own. http://www.infohub.c…
I thoroughly enjoyed Normandy. We rented a car and developed our own tour by combining museums and sights from the 5 or 6 mapped and marked self-guided driving tours. My favorites were The Memorial in Caens, the museum and remnants of the artifical harbor at Arromanches and the Coleville cemetary.

I also enjoyed Bastogne (Belgium). There’s a great museum at the memorial there. The Battle of the Bulge story is well presented in three languages (including English). Nearby Luxembourg city is also interesting from a WWII standpoint. The allies liberated Luxembourg and then lost it back to the Germans who killed thousands for collaborating with the enemy before the allies retook the area.

Dover Castle (Dover, UK) is great. The castle was continually in use as a military fortress from 1066 through the 1960’s. There’s a WWII hospital, air command center, etc. tunneled into the chalk cliffs and with displays and some re-enactors.

I probably shouldn’t announce I’m a teacher and misspell a country in the same paragraph. He’s lived in Swansea, Wales and in London, each for a few years.

What in Paris would you recommend? Any favorite places you’d be willing to share about Germany, Austria or Spain? We’re planning a month and want to see as much history as possible at an enjoyable speed. I’ve never studied much European history so I don’t know where a lot of great things are.

Thanks!

@ Whales…..

I am planning a similar trip (including Germany & Austria) and also have an interest in WWII places.

I tried to include a visit to Auschwitz as it didn’t look to far if we were going to be in Salzburg. Unfortunately the budget and time doesn’t allow for this so we have changed my plans (again). If you have a month and are going to Austria consider taking a couple of days to go to Auschwitz. If not there is Dachau near Munich.

Last summer we had an interesting visit to Natzweiler, outside of
Strasbourg,France.[url=‘http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natzweiler’]Natzweiler-Struthof[/url]

You should stop here, to the site of the Allied crossing of the Rhine into Germany; the museum is housed in the supports of the old bridge there and is quite good with lots in English. It’s in Remagen, Germany, just south of Bonn, on a major train route between Cologne and Mainz that takes you through the scenic Rhine gorge:

http://www.bruecke-r…

Rent "The Bridge at Remagen" with George Segal and Ben Gazarra (Netflix has it) if you want a Hollywood version of what happened there.

I took an awesome tour of the D Day Beaches with Battlebus. Tours out of Bayeux. This company has several themed tours. I wish i spent more days with them but it was very cold when i went so only did the Canadian and British Highlights tour – which was awesome. A little pricey, but awesome.

That sounds really awesome.

I so want to go to at least one concentration camp. I commented it to my friends and they kinda freaked out.

There are wonderful tours available in Normandy, but it’s one of the places where I recommend renting a car and driving. We were there during D-day week, but even then there was little traffic. Things are well signed and the "self-driving tour" brochures are easy to follow. Downside is that renting a car probably ends up being more expensive than taking a tour.

quote:
I’m a US History teacher, headed to Europe in June. Planning to see England, Scotland, Whales (husband grew up there) and want to do the WWII sites (Italy, France, Germany, Austria and possibly Spain.)

Why Spain? It was neutral in World War 2 so no fighting took place there. You’d be better placed going further East, Poland etc

quote:
I’m a US History teacher, headed to Europe in June. Planning to see England, Scotland, Whales (husband grew up there) and want to do the WWII sites (Italy, France, Germany, Austria and possibly Spain.) Can anyone recommend places or a good guidebook for such a tour?

Heavydrinker, this forum is for grownups, now run along and go play in the Pub~~Cil

"heavydrinker", that has to have been one of the most juvenile posts that I’ve seen on any board dring 2006.

Well, Spain doesn’t have any "WWII sites" since the country was technically neutral during WWII. However, a brutal civil war raged from 1936 to 1939, between the Republicans and the Royalists. The republicans were supported by a coalition of democratic governments and undemocratic regimes like Stalin’s. The royalists were most supported by Hitler and Mussolini who sent troops to Spain despite international agreement not to do so.

I guess you can visit the town of Gernika/Guernica in País Vasco, that was bombed by Hitler and Mussolini because the town was a Republican stronghold. The bombing of this town was the subject of Picasso’s painting Guernica.

You might be also interested in the Monumento Nacional de Santa Cruz del Valle de los Caidos, or in short Valle de los Caidos ("National Monument of the Holy Cross of the Valley of the Fallen&quot. This was built as a national monument to all those who died during the civil war, however there is a controversy as dictator Francisco Franco had it built by political prisoners, and that the monument takes a pro-royalist tone rather than one of reconciliation between the two sides and most buried there are royalists including Franco himself.

Even more sobering, they are now uncovering mass graves around the country dating to the civil war (but some may also include republicans executed after the end of the war). You can try doing a google search on these, if you’d like more information. I’m not sure to what extent they’re open to public visits and if there’s ongoing excavations. The vast majority of sites remain untouched. Careful too, as this is still an incredibly sensitive issue in Spain, so don’t bring it up to people out of context.