Wednesday, November 24, 2021

Bitche, France

On October 9th, we ventured out for the first time in what felt like forever & drove down to Bitche, France.  Bitche is only about 45 minutes from our house so it wasn't very far.

There is an incredible fortress/citadel there on the top of a very steep hill in the middle of a valley.  This fortress has never been conquered EVER.  In fact, in the war between France & Prussia (Germany), the French held this fortress for over 8 months without anyone able to penetrate the walls.  The Germans had thousands of armed men, canons, guns, etc. & they never got in.  It's pretty incredible.



We took the tour inside the citadel & it ended up being kind of a "we'll never forget" moment for our family.  I forget that Europeans (especially the French) don't view certain aspects of cinema as harshly as we do.  We sat through an hour long tour with several videos & wound up having to plug our ears & look at the ground to avoid being exposed to bad language, full on nudity, & violence that gave my boys nightmares for a week afterward.  We couldn't help but laugh after it was all over with, but at the time, my poor littles were crying after seeing a guy get his leg sawed off on a big screen in a dungeon.

But the citadel itself was incredible.  I can see how nobody was able to break through it.  The walls were several meters thick & the tunnel system throughout that hill was insanely cool.  Once we were on top, we could see for miles all around us.  It was beautiful.







The boys of course spent all their allowance money on "weapons."  Canyon got a slingshot & Bladen got a rubber band pistol.

















The tunnel system was my favorite part of the tour.  I can't believe how much work it must have taken to dig these tunnels & corridors inside the mountain.




This was definitely worth seeing. . . the tour movies, not so much, but the citadel itself was AWESOME.

 

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