Ouvrage Four-à-Chaux — Attraction in Haguenau-Wissembourg

Ouvrage du Four à Chaux is an amazing WW2 site, definitely worth visiting to experience the Maginot fortifications. Only access to the underground fort is on guided tours, which is available in only french or german. A laminated written guide in english can be borrowed, and though it don't include all details provided during the 2 hour spoken tour, it is rather rich and detailed. The fort is kept in good condition and has a large number of displays and historical materiel presented. Especially the demonstration of how the artillery tower is raised and used is great illustration of how the main firing system worked. Despite the lower temperature in the fort, during summertime it did not feel freezing, but i recommend bringing shoes and socks as the corridors can...

The place and the guided tour is extremely interesting - at least for adults and older children / adolescents. Unfortunately, we were not very lucky with our tour. They had accepted so many people for the same slot, that two groups had to be created (each around 30 people!). The second group - ours - was always a bit behind. Moreover, we had to wait for late arrivals. So we lost at least 15min at the beginning and were even more delayed during the tour. So we were not able to see the museum (which is only accessible with a guide) and the generator room - because the next tour started 2h after ours should have started :-/ Also, either due to the guide or to the size of the group the tour was not really made kids younger...

It is definitely worth a visit. The entire fortification and the engineering behind ist are truly impressive. You get a picture on how the soldiers in the fort lived, how the chain of command worked and how the entire line of defense was organized. About the end you get to see first hand how a combat tower gets lifted, rotates and how it gets charged with munition. The entire tour takes around 2 hours and it's guided, so keep in mind that the entrance takes place only at specific hours. One more thing: the temperature inside is only 13 Celsius, so wearing a jacket is...