Hatfield-Hankins European Adventure 2015: You win some, you lose some, Saturday 04-25-2015

This has been a great adventure. Everything has gone very well, from our departure to England, various tours, France was exceptional, and we headed for Belgium. A trip highlight was planned. A private tour of the "Battle of the Bulge". So we thought. Jean(John, Jacque) picked us up at our hotel to begin the tour. An English spoken tour, mind you. So we headed off for the Ardennes, sight of one of the most famous battles in the U.S. history of modern war fare. This was as good as it got.
Our tour guide was not fluent in English. We all had a difficult time understanding him. I don't want to bore you, but it was bad.
We went to the Big Red One (First Infantry Division) monument. Jean said this is a monument to the Big Red One. They fought the Germans at this location. We drove through a valley that was called "three bridges". Here the U.S. Forces blew up three bridges that stopped the German Armor advance. Jean was not sure which bridges were blown up. We went to a small village that had a German tank on display. He said the tank was taken out of the river in 1948. He thought it had been used in the battle. We drove to Luxembourg to see Patton's grave. A drive that lasted over 1 1/2 hours. Tremendous traffic jam on the interstate. We pulled up to the cemetery , took a picture of the grave site, used the bathroom, and were on the road again in about 15 minutes. We stopped at the memorial for the Malmedy massacre. The monument said this was the location of the killing ground. Jean said he thought the location was across the road. We started at 0815 in the morning. We finally arrived in Bastogne around 1630. The museum closed at 1800. Jean wanted us to meet him at 1745. We had 1 hour an 15 minutes to view the museum. The ticket office suggested we come another day, because it will take 2 hours to view the museum properly.

Let me back up a little bit. After we spent the afternoon driving to Luxembourg, being stuck in traffic (for road construction), I said I had a question. I said" Jean, John, Jacque, or whatever your name is, why did we waste the afternoon driving to Luxembourg and sitting in traffic. This situation did not just occur, it has been going on for several months." It went downhill after that. After we left the museum we stopped at some depressions in the forest that Jean said was a foxhole. (Maybe...maybe not..) By this time most of what he said was suspect. On our way back to Brussels, he pointed out a site that 13 boys were murdered by the Nazi's. I said "13 boys? What 13 boys? I don't know what you are talking about." Jean said he was doing the best he could. I said "Pardon me" (In a sarcastic tone). Jean got angry and said I was attacking him personally. We were about 169 km from Brussels. One and 1/2 hours. Complete silence for the rest of the trip. When we got back to the hotel Linda and I got out and walked inside without another word. We left Marry Ann and Jerry with Jean, he was offering his abject apology for losing his temper.

I can't wait to get home and do my evaluation with Viator and Trip Advisor and tell what I really think about Jean, Jack, Jacque. An absolute waste of our time and our money. Let it go...Let it go....