We have arrived! After an 8 1/2 hour flight we landed this morning at 7:30am local time in Frankfurt. Luggage took a while but we got our car pretty quickly and were on on the road and on our way to Ouvrage Hackenburg which is one the first forts that make up the Maginot Line.

We had about a 3-hour drive and started listening to The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman on audio book and have really enjoyed it. We finished up chapter 5 and are very much enjoying days using the topics as we drive. We hope to do a From Cover to Cover video together upon our return.

We arrived at Hackenburg at around 10:30am and got right into looking around. As we entered the area we were greeted by an M-10 Tank Destroyer and it was gorgeous.

Obviously this tank had nothing to really do with the Maginot Line but was there representing the American action during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944.

We then made our way down the winding road to the fort and were amazed as we drove up at just how formidable this fortification would have been.

The actual structure was made of very thick and durable concrete and it has weathered the elements well over the past 100+ years.

There were several statues and commemorative plaques on and around the grounds and my favorite was a memorial to PFC Joe Messina from Bainbridge, Massachusetts who died on November 18, 1944.

I also very much liked the memorial to all the soldiers who fought and died on the Maginot Line.

The best part of the statue was the collage of soldiers faces that made up the silhouette of a soldier.

We then left and made our way to Metz, which was a very gorgeous and well cared for city. The highlight was the Cathédrale Saint Étienne de Metz. This was a massive and beautiful place of worship and was lovely both inside and out.

The diocese dates back at least to the 4th century and the present cathedral building was begun in the early 14th century. In the mid-14th century, it was joined to the collegiate church of Notre-Dame, and given a new transept and late Gothic chevet, and was finished between 1486 and 1520.

I am always amazed by the reverence and solemnity of old cathedrals and places of worship. The people who built them sacrificed their time, money and talents to do so because they believed in building the Kingdom of God. I just very much enjoyed our 40 minutes inside.

We then drove a bit further down the road to visit Mars-la-Tour where the Battle of Vionville or Battle of Rezonville was fought on August 16, 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War. We think this is at least part of the battle represented in Hermann Luttmann’s excellent At Any Cost from GMT Games.

We then had to leave quickly to make it Verdun as we had a lot of places we wanted to see. On the way there, we drive down the Liberty Road (French La voie de la Liberté) which is a commemorative way marking the route of the Allied forces from D-Day in June 1944. It starts in Sainte-Mère-Eglise on the coast of Normandy, and more specifically is found in the Manchedépartement and travels across Northern France to Metz and then northwards to end in Bastogne in Belgium, on the border of Luxembourg. At each of the 1,146 kilometers of the road, there is a stone marker or ‘Borne’. The first one lies outside the town hall in Sainte-Mère-Église.

I thought this was pretty neat!

While on the way to Verdun we came across an interesting site pretty much in the middle of nowhere in a German soldier graveyard from WWI.

This was a very sobering site as the French people of this area, who have suffered and lost sons, daughters and loved ones to the Germans and the war, allowed this to be placed here and also obviously still have a hand in taking care of it as it was very clean and orderly.

We then made our way to the Douaumont Ossuary at Verdun which is a huge mausoleum and graveyard commemorating this loss of life from the Siege of Verdun in 1916. In the bottom floors, which we couldn’t see from the inside but could from the outside, contained thousands of human skulls and miscellaneous bones from unidentified soldiers at Verdun. Truly a sobering site and probably my favorite of the day!

We then arrived at the Verdun French National Cemetery. I was struck by how young most of the soldiers buried there were and realized how awful war and the suffering it castes are. Many of these young men were barely starting life and it was ended prematurely. Just very sobering.

I also was impressed by this monument and the straightforward statements about the Nazis and their horrific war crimes.

We then finished up with a walking tour of the Fleury-devant-Douaumont Fort and it was very massive! Made of concrete, and mostly buried into the side of the hills there, this fort was never taken and shows signs of continual and heavy bombardment with shell holes, destroyed walls and structures and lots of left over trenches in the area.

From atop the fort, the view was incredible and really gave me the sense that the Maginot Line was formidable and created a fantastic field of view to monitor the approaching Germans.

The final fort we toured was Fort Souville and it was awesome as we were able to explore much of its intact structure and rooms.

That brought our first day to a close and frankly we have both only slept about 2 hours in the past 36 hours as neither of us got much rest on the plane and we are exhausted. We are heading to bed early tonight and tomorrow have a big day planned as we will be visiting Bastogne and Sedan. Check back in tomorrow for our continued adventures! Thanks for reading along.

-Grant