Interesting/ time worthy WWII sites in Europe
 

So I am planning a trip about 15 days total in Europe to visit 4 countries (more or less). During this trip i would like to visit these countries to see WWII sites. I am looking for both museums and WWII historical sites ex battleground, ruins, etc. (and good places to eat genuine europe food!) What countries should i visit. Where would i go in say countries for good WWII sites! THX

Blimey, mate, how about a bit of googling on WW2 sites. You would immediately come up with the Normandy beaches, and Battle of the Bulge area in Belgium. The bridge at Remargen is gone, and for Bridge too far, nothing much to see.
Might be more interesting to stick with WW1 sites..
What is genuine europe food? Does not exist!

When are you visiting?
There is an interesting museum at Ossterbeek - http://www.airbornemuseum.nl/. The site also has links to battlefield tours. On 22nd September there will be a mass parachute jump over the Ginkelseheide near Ede as part of the commemoration of "the Bridge too far".
Anne Frankhuis is of course not to be missed.
In Amersfoort and Westerbork there are the remains of German concentration camps. Anne frank first went to Westerbork.
Margraten has the US ww2 cemetery.
Not far away, just over the border in Belgium is Eben Emael which you may find interesting.

funny i was just commenting on another post about


http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attract...d_Holland.html

if you go to Amsterdam, this was a very interesting tour given by Peter, who has genuine interest and feeling toward what he teaches.

I found standing on the sands at Dunkirk to be very moving. And wondered what might have befallen had not that miracle occurred...

Bastogne, Belgium is a very interesting WW Two site. My husband and a friend went on a great battlefield tour there. Search on Fodors for more information about Bastogne.

Maginot Line forts in Alsace, Citadel at Bitche. Westwall emplacements in Germany.

Good "Europe" food available at both (better in Alsace).

Normandy disembarkation beaches, the cliffs at Pointe Du Hoc, Normandy American cemetery and Memorial.

Four countries in 2 weeks is at least one country too much. Surely you have some idea what WWII sites you want to visit in Europe - have you not done even basic research?

<<What countries should i visit.>>

Do you know anything about WWII history? Try countries where the action took place. For that, you can skip Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, San Marino . . .

WWII ruins? What does that mean?

I'm thinking "Europe food" can be found throughout Europe . . .

WWII ruins? We had 67 years to clean up and we have used the time.

Oradour sur Glane is a ruin, if you find yourself in that part of France. And German cities often have a ruined bombed out church left as a reminder. Some British cities have them too, like Coventry.

But in general, WWII ruins are few and far between.

You'd need to do some reading on the countries that interest you and see what's there.

"ruins, etc."

Apart from St Luke's Church in Berry St, central Liverpool (which has been kept deliberately more or less as it was when the fire caused by an incendiary bomb was put out in May 1941), I can't think of a single WW2 ruin left. I'm sure there are other similarly contrived memorials around Europe - but the rebuilding process is 99.9999% complete.

WW2 was fought in and over just about every square inch of Europe and the seas surrounding it. There are even significant WW2 sites - such as Commonwealth war graves - in the handful of countries that remained neutral.

Most important WW2 events weren't terrestrial battles between armies. The Battle of Britain, the Battle of the Atlantic, the Resistance in Nazi-occupied Europe, the sieges of Leningrad and Stalingrad, the Holocaust, the (admittedly one-sided) technology wars (like radar, the earliest nuclear warfare research, Ultra and its consequences for the computer industry and the commercialisation of penicillin): these all arguably affected events more, and affected infinitely more people then and now, than Monte Cassino or the Battle of The Bulge.

And many of the most interesting sites to visit aren't necessarily the places battles were fought or air-raids destroyed. The Cabinet War Rooms or the Imperial War Museum tell you a great deal more, more efficiently, about how the war was fought than trekking out to an otherwise remote Normandy beach. A morning at Oradour might convey the horror of a war that dominated every single person's life for six years far better than either museum.

Whatever happened between 1949 and 1945, there's a memorial (and probably a multimillion euro museum) about it somewhere in Europe. Yours honestly isn't (yet) a question for a travel forum. Read a decent history of the war (especially the real war: the battle in people's homes and workplaces: Max Hastings' "All Hell Let Loose" is the best recent account of the balance between the military and non-military wars) and decide what you want to find out more about.

You need to get out more, Flanner.

There are two readily accessible bombed-out churches in the Centre of Bristol (Temple and St Peter's) and a third (St Mary le Port) which is now surrounded by other buildings.

In Portsmouth there is the Domus Dei, which used to be the garrison church.

None of these are really of more than local interest, and certainly not worth a detour.

There are battle sites and memorials all over Europe. Three not so far mentioned are the fortifications on the French coast between Calais and Boulogne, the American Cemetery south of Florence, and the air museum at Duxford near Cambridge. With just a little imagination, you will begin to understand what the war meant to different groups of participants.

I agree there is not much in the way of 'ruins' left, but you might be thinking of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedaechtniskirche in Berlin which was deliberately left in a state of ruin as a lesson to successive generations. You might also consider visiting the eastern half of Germany which IMO is still undergoing reconstruction or regeneration - not only from WWII but simply from 40 years of communism. Many places were not able to be rebuilt immediately after WWII and so even in the 90s and 00s there were holes in the ground in many cities, left over from WWII. This is probably slowly rectifying itself. You might be interested in the book Ortszeit / Local Time, by Stefan Koppelkamm, which is a book of photos documenting east German cities at reunification and then 10 years later. In some cases there was progress, in many, decay. Very thought-provoking.

A testament to the skill of German stonemasons is Dresden, in particular the Frauenkirche, which was restored to its former glory, albeit with charred stones from the original building. Also in Nuernberg the Sebalduskirche has inside it (or used to, at least) an interesting series of photos - it was almost completely destroyed thanks to WWII and patiently rebuilt, which is documented in the photos. It really made an impact on me.

Good luck, hope you find what you're looking for.

Lavandula

No one has yet addressed the poster's desire to eat 'genuine Europe food.'

I meant 800 days, not 88:-)

We would HAVE to assume he did something by now--2 years later.