* France - Ardennes

Arrive at Charleville Mézières. Lunch. Guided tour in group of Mézières' fortified town walls with its famous towers: the Tour du Roy, the Tour Milard, and the Tour de l'Ecole. Dinner and overnight.

Guided visit with group of Charleville's ducal square, France's most beautiful from the Louis XIII period. We go past the automated clock known as the Great Puppeteer, the "l'Horloge du Grand Marionnettiste", and indeed it is just that, a huge puppeteer with the puppet show at waist level, which comes alive every hour with a puppet show to mark the time. Lunch then on to Sedan, where we visit the vast fort, Europe's biggest, and then the famous carpet factory. Two centuries of local workers' expertise were preserved by the founding of this factory in 1878, and it produces carpets of the highest quality. Dinner and overnight.

Destination Rocroi with the group. The town's stone fortifications are star shaped and one of the old 17th century guardrooms houses the Museum of the famous Battle of Rocroi. We have a guided tour of both.  Lunch then on to Fumay, onetime world capital of slate production. We visit the museum dedicated to the slate miners and its reconstruction of the pits and cellars. On to Bouillon and its imposing castle, the oldest relic of Belgium's feudal past. Dinner. Overnight.

Villy La Ferté and a visit with group to the fort on the Maginot Line,  scene of tragic combat 16-19 May 1940. Lunch.