We had to do the laundry! This was in the ALDI grocery store parking lot and worked great!
After a few days in Spa with a German friend – good food, good wine, and a day at the Spa Thermal baths, we headed off to explore WWII sites. We’d done some research so we knew that both of us had uncles who served in the Battle of the Bulge. We had a long day driving on back country roads looking for various villages, hills, cemeteries, etc. It’s pretty clear why the Germans and the Americans wanted to control these hills. If you were on the top, you controlled the countryside for miles.
Susan’s great uncle fought with the 2nd Infantry Division in this town, Krinkelt, Belgium. The town erected this monument to them.
Margraten U.S. Military Cemetery in Margraten, Netherlands.
We finally found the Margraten US Cemetery. We stopped in the Visitor Center where they asked if I had a relative – Yes, Paul McDade buried there. While we looked at the displays and used the toilet, the worker looked Paul up and put together a nice packet for us. Then he took us to the grave site and sanded the tombstone with Normandy sand to make it more readable. Placed a NL and US flag on the site. We could take them with us. He also told us the unit Morning Reports are available on the Archives website. If we wanted to visit for Memorial Day, we just had to let them know and we could have a seat reserved.
Susan’s 3rd cousin is buried in Margraten. He is a ball turret gunner in WWII and died over Germany.
Last stop of the day was Valkenburg, Netherlands where the Amstel Gold Professional bike race takes place. We parked the car for the weekend and explored on foot!
Saturday, we walked around town to the Cauberg (famous climb) and up the hill to the cemetery. We watched the Citizens’ ride people go by – slow, fast, walking the bike, riders being pushed on the bike. Lots of expensive bicycles. 15000 people ride this and particiaption is decided by lottery.
Since we weren’t sure how the Amstel race would effect the city roads (closed, open, what times), we checked with a very nice Tourist Info lady on how to get out of town in the morning. She gave very detailed directions – go UP the hill …. Keep going UP the hill … Up Up UP the hill.
Valkenburg – Amstel Gold pro bike race was on Sunday. On Saturday, the citizens ride took place with about 15,000 riders!
5 of these “people” sculptures are scattered around Valkenburg, Netherlands.
Time to end this part of the adventure and go to the next part. We left on Sunday; managed to figure out to pay at the parking garage. No problem getting out of Valkenberg and to the Autoroute using the Tourist Lady’s directions. Followed various autoroutes – the first was not busy. They got busier as we got closer to Amsterdam. At least trucks can’t drive on the Autoroute on Sunday. Lots of accidents with long backup changed our routing a bit – took a national road cross country to avoid a 25 minute backup. Plus the A2 was closed for construction in 2 long stretches. Traffic was heavy as we got nearer to Schiphol. We found the gas station just fine at Schiphol but Google failed trying to direct us to Car Return. It should have told us to do a U-turn – we ended back on the autoroute and had to use the LONG approach ramp again!
