Wed. 7-25 to Marckolsheim

A pleasant but uneventful ride through villages and fields, then a long stretch beside an old canal. By 12:30 we reached our goal at Marckolsheim, a  small town, chosen because it was the right km of riding for the day. We killed time until we could check in. The hotel manager told us about a memorial and museum of the Maginot Line nearby, so we rode to see it. Attaching a couple of pictures. We figured out that the Maginot Line was not the folly it's made out to be. It was a line of fortresses which could lay down fearsome artillery and machinegun fire to hold back the Germans until mobile reinforcements could arrive. But in the event, the Germans invaded France through Belgium, and most of the French forces were redeployed from the Rhine to the north.  The Maginot Line was poorly armed, manned and supplied, so it didn't hold up for long. The place we visited was a large fortress with a museum inside. About 20 French died defending it. 10 days later, Hitler visited the place along with Gen. Keitel and Martin Bormann. The hotel manager related what his parents told of that time. The Germans brought in a new teacher and principal for the school, and took the old ones out and shot them. Later in the war they were required to billet a German radio crew upstairs in their house. They correctly assumed that Allied bombers would target the source of radio signals so they got out of the house during air raids. The house was blown away along with the Germans upstairs.