Battlefields and Beer of the Belgian Ardennes – NEW 2-CENTRE TOUR

Depart the UK

Drive to Dover and take the ferry crossing to Calais or Dunkerque.  Make your way through France and into Belgium and on to your hotel in Mouscron for the next 2 nights.  After check-in there will be time to relax before enjoying dinner together.

WW1 – Ypres and Flanders

Travel to Ypres and meet up with a local guide for a coach tour of the ’14-18′ route. The Ypres region was the backdrop to some of the bloodiest battles in history, 100 years ago. See infamous battlefield sites, cemeteries and memorials before returning to Ypres.

After some free time and lunch make a self-guided tour of the ‘In Flanders Field’ Museum which is located in the imposing Cloth Hall in Ypres. The museum confronts the visitor with the consequences of the Great War with an exhibition of touching videos  unique sounds and the most up-to-date multimedia applications.

Evening dinner will be taken together in a local restaurant in Ypres before witnessing the Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate.

Return to the hotel.

1815 Wellington v Napoleon

First stop is a visit to the Memorial 1815 Museum located on the site of the Battle of Waterloo including the Lion Monument, which marks the front line of the battle between the French and Allied troops.  Next to the memorial is the Panorama a 12 meter high painted circular canvas depicting the battle). Other sites include the Hougoumont Farm exhibition and multi-media show, the Wellington Museum (originally British HQ) and Napoleon’s HQ.

The tour will end with a beer tasting at Mont-Saint-Jean Farm’s Micro Brewery (once a surgical hospital).

Drive to Namur for 2 nights.  After check-in at the hotel, dinner is at the hotel and the rest of the evening at leisure.

WW2 and the Battle of the Bulge

Close to the Luxembourg border is Bastogne, scene of the Battle of the Bulge, the last major German offensive.  This tour will include many various museums, monuments and historical sites such as  star-shaped Mardasson Hill and museum, one of the finest American war memorials featuring the names of 77,000 Americans.  Bastogne Barracks Exhibition which also has an outdoor display of WW2 track and wheel vehicles and memorabilia and the War Rooms which house McAuliffe’s historical cellar.  Visit the Battle of the Ardennes Museum in La Roche-en-Ardennes, the only one to present a British section with the accent being on the British participation during the allied counter-attack (3-6 January 1945) and the liberation of La Roche and the villages on the left bank of the River Ourthe.

Before returning to the hotel, finish with a visit and beer tasting at Chouffe Brewery.  Dinner is at the hotel this evening.

Return to the UK

Travel to Calais or Dunkerque and take the ferry across to the UK, and home.  If time allows, en route to Calais, make an optional stop in Mons, the site where the first and last solder to be killed on the Western Front during WW1 and visit the memorial museum

Mons Military Weekend -‘ TANKS IN TOWN’  (September)

Why not coincide this tour with the Tanks in Town event in Mons in September every year.  To commemorate the liberation of Mons during WW2, the town hosts a superb collection of ‘Tanks in Town’. This event features a host of armoured vehicles. Shermans, Chaffees, Pershings, Tank Destroyers, Half Tracks and a host of jeeps and trucks parade through the streets culminating on the Sunday as they peacefully invade the city centre and take over the main square. Throughout the weekend there are events in the nearby fields surrounding Mons including a period camp, military flea market and a parade.