Band of Brothers road trip

We'll be in Bastogne next Monday for my annual visit en route to luxembourg:cool: There is a car park in centre of town you can stay over night for free.
Taking my son who loves Band of Brothers to all the museums and places of interest before heading down to the American Cemetery in Luxembourg to see General Patton.
We're doing a bit of a battefield tour this year starting at the Somme and heading over into the Ardennes then ending our travels in Ypres to see the menin gate (again) on the 14th
 
Time to start planning this trip again seen as places are starting to open up again. Bought a map of Europe wall chart and plotted out my rough route and I reckon I can follow the route they take in the series even though they do go back and forth a fair bit. I guess that's war for you!

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1. Normandy, Easy Co. memorial + Brecourt + Battle of Carenten & Bloody Gulch memorial

2. I am hoping there is something to see here in Nijmegen regarding a major assault by Easy Co.

3. The liberation of Eindhoven and an Easy Co. operation in Nuenen

4. This episode features 'the bloodied bastards of Bastogne' I notice there is a war museum here so hoping to visit that. Also Foy is here with a couple of military cemeteries.

5. Haguenau. I know Easy Co. had operations here but not too sure if there's anything to actually visit.

6. Landster. Easy liberated a concentration camp here and I know there is memorials here to visit.

7. Eagles Nest. End of the trip here. Hoping to park up close by and get the coach tour to the top of the mountain.

Anyway, that's the rough plan completed. Still a lot of fine tuning to do regarding routes and places to stay/ stop over.

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GAVLAD said:
I am sooo envious! - this is my favourite historical event - favourite being that I'm interested in before anyone jumps on me!
Questions for you:
Are you planning on doing it all in the one trip or splitting?
It maybe worth your while to sail into say Cherbourg or port that side and work your way east. Otherwise you're going to double back on yourself if you go in & out of say Calais.

I've visited most of the Normandy sites, but I did not go specifically based on the Band of Brothers route.
I would suggest that you widen your search a little bit more and buy a pocket guide book called D Day by Major & Mrs Holt - approx. £8 on ebay.
It gives you itineraries with maps, focal points and history about each point.
Some places that may be of interest are below for you to consider which include Bayeux, Port en Bessin, Omaha, Utah, St Mere Eglise, Arromanches, Douvres radar, Juno, Sword, Gold, Ouistreham, Ranville, Pegasus Bridge, Merville & Longues sur Mer.
With regards to Bastogne - I stopped off there last year enroute to Italy.
There's plenty to see in town and theres a good Airborne museum in town. Just out of town is the Bastogne museum which is next to the US Memorial. I went to look around the memorial but ran out of time for that museum - it's meant to be very good.
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We did the whole "Overlord" tour following the brown signs, from Pegasus Bridge all the way to St. Mare Eglaise.
Did the Portsmouth - Caen crossing.
Plenty of Aires / small campsites, and lots of the smaller museums along the route will let you stay overnight.
A very moving and informative way to spend 2 weeks.
If you do get to do it, please stop at all of the small private museums along the way, as they are all memorials in their own way to those who made the ultimate sacrifice, and need support so that we do not forget.
RIP to all of them, and thankyou.
Joe
 
We visited Bastogne, the huge USA museum/memorial is well worth a visit, so too is the barracks in Bastogne, on certain days there is a very good (free) tour with English speaking guides of where all the planning took place with Patton etc.. a good collection of military hardware too.
 
I think you need to make a decision on the order.
As to do it historical order would take you more than two weeks (or a lot a driving and not seeing much)

I guess you also need to work out if you are following the TV series, the film, or for historical accuracy, the books.

The start point should really be Wiltshire in the UK where they did they were billited before D Day.
Point 1 on your map (D Day Landings) to point 2 (Nijmegen) took them from June to September 44.
It may not feature heavily in the TV series, but in reality would have been a major event for those there.
You could easily make that a two week trip on it's own.

I'd be thinking Wiltshire to Southampton for the Chebourg ferry.
Do the D Day landings, then drive up to Holland for point 2 and 3 and maybe 4 before heading home via the Hook of Holland/Harwich ferry.

The other option would be to miss off D-Day/Northern France entirely and start on the Harwich/Hook of Holland Holland ferry and do 2 3 4 5 6 7 in order. That would still be a 2,500 km circuit, doable in a couple of weeks, but quite a lot of driving.
 
If you go to Berchtesgaden, visit the museum BEFORE you visit the Eagles nest. The museum is just below the bus station.

We were at Ypres after travelling home from our Europe trip, and met a lady ho was going to Berchtesgaden, as her parents and grandparents lived there during WW2 (and before) when Hitler was there in the 30's. She and her parents left and moved over to UK after the war, as they had been bombed out by the Americans.
They changed their name but she only spoke german. I asked her what it was like for a little girl who only spoke german to move to UK after WW2 ? she said she had to learn english pretty quickly as she had problems at school fitting in.
 
Brains said:
I think you need to make a decision on the order.
As to do it historical order would take you more than two weeks (or a lot a driving and not seeing much)

I guess you also need to work out if you are following the TV series, the film, or for historical accuracy, the books.

The start point should really be Wiltshire in the UK where they did they were billited before D Day.
Point 1 on your map (D Day Landings) to point 2 (Nijmegen) took them from June to September 44.
It may not feature heavily in the TV series, but in reality would have been a major event for those there.
You could easily make that a two week trip on it's own.

I'd be thinking Wiltshire to Southampton for the Chebourg ferry.
Do the D Day landings, then drive up to Holland for point 2 and 3 and maybe 4 before heading home via the Hook of Holland/Harwich ferry.

The other option would be to miss off D-Day/Northern France entirely and start on the Harwich/Hook of Holland Holland ferry and do 2 3 4 5 6 7 in order. That would still be a 2,500 km circuit, doable in a couple of weeks, but quite a lot of driving.
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A trip to Wiltshire may well be on the cards.

I'm pretty sure I'll easily be able to get to all points on the map. I don't mind a lot of driving.

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I do hope you'll do a blog of the trip. St Mere Eglise Airborne Museum is very good. At one point you go through the fuselage of a C47 where they have mannequins in full para kit. You can hardly hear yourself think as they play a soundtrack of the engine noise. A very good immersion into what it was like for Easy Company and all the other guys that dropped that night
 
ChrisSue said:
I do hope you'll do a blog of the trip. St Mere Eglise Airborne Museum is very good. At one point you go through the fuselage of a C47 where they have mannequins in full para kit. You can hardly hear yourself think as they play a soundtrack of the engine noise. A very good immersion into what it was like for Easy Company and all the other guys that dropped that night
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Yeah I've got a few ideas for a kind of blog for the trip. Finding a gap in our workload will be the hardest part.

Thanks for that info, sounds right up my street 👌
 

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