After a short stop yesterday at Fort Casso we continued the day’s adventure to the small town of Bitche. It was not the name of the town that attracted us to visit, rather the fact that there is a large citadel on top of a hill.
Bitche: Climbing Yet Another Hill
Since we left Sweden two weeks ago we have climbed a lot of hills. First, it was first the castle in Bielefeld. After that, there have been a few more. The castles in Vianden and Esch-sur-Sûre are the most recent ones a few days ago.
Cobblestone streets are not our favorite when walking with a pram and the route we took up the side of the hill was indeed one of this kind. It takes a lot more energy to prevent the pram from jumping around too much when walking on cobblestone and it takes quite a long time to get anywhere. Eventually, we gave up and carried Litte A the last bit up the hill.
The Citadel offers a great view over the town and it is an impressive construction. There is a lot of resemblance with the Citadel in Verdun. This one is just a little smaller. The Citadel stands on the grounds of a 13th-century castle. The fortress was one of the strongholds that were not conquered by the Prussian and Bavarian armies in the Franko-Prussian war in the 19th century. The garrison of 3 000 men held the castle for 8 months until the cease-fire. Even though the fortress did not give in, Germany annexed the town. It was not given back to France until the end of the first world war.
Bitche: Going Back Down
For us, the Citadel proved too hard to conquer with a pram. Little A was happily sleeping when we headed back down the hill. We did at least enjoy a great view over the town, so we were not too disappointed. It was kind of expected. Instead, we enjoyed the town while we walked through it on the way back to our car.
Join us on the road through Europe here!
