Holland day trip part 1...

If you have read much of my blog you know that in Germany on Sundays there is nothing open.  It can be quite boring if you don't have something planned.  We make it a point to try to do day trips on Sundays and yesterday, thanks to a friend's suggestion, we found an amazing museum about an hour and a half from Dusseldorf!

Across the border in the town of Overloon, Holland is Liberty Park.  This location is where the greatest tank battle in Dutch history took place in 1944.  In September of that year,  the Market Garden attack plan was devised.  This plan was to facilitate the further advancement to Berlin.  The German opponent attempted to cut the Allies off and they came to blows on September 30th near Overloon.  British troops joined the battle about a week later and after three weeks of fighting Overloon and Venray were liberated.

You can walk through this battlefield that has now been turned into an amazing 34.5 Acre park.  You will find sculptures, gorgeous scenery and two museums, as well as a Liberation Route tour that you can take.

We started off by walking through the grounds of the park and found numerous sculptures, many depicting the pain and anguish that the individuals of Holland faced during World War II...

There are also many tanks and bunkers to explore.

After our time exploring the park, it was onto The Dutch National War and Resistance Museum.  This museum presents the history of the Second World War. You will see how in a period of five years, fifty million people lost their lives.  Many of the exhibits are hands on; you ride in an airplane dropping soldiers and their parachutes, you sit in an air raid shelter listening to the bombs being dropped around you.  There are also moving images of how the war began, propaganda posters, and a large amount of attention is given to the resistance.  There are graphic images in the museum of concentration camps, however it was very easy to steer the youngest Expat away from these.

The last exhibit in this museum is a moving tribute to the people who lost their lives during the war and the liberation.

Tune in tomorrow for pictures of the rest of the our day at Liberty Park and show you the pictures of the Marshall Museum,  and one of the largest collections of war memorabilia in Europe!