Group Tour Operator & DMC for holidays to Belgium and France

Depart the UK

Take the short sea ferry crossing from Dover to Calais and continue by coach to your hotel in the Lille** region for the next 3 nights.  If time permits, begin exploring the area.

(**We are also able to offer hotels in the Ypres region – please ask for details)

In Flanders Fields Museum and the ’14-18′ Route

Make the short journey to Ypres for a self-guided visit of the ‘In Flanders Fields Museum’ which has been renovated and improved in recent years.  It is located in the former Cloth Halls of Ypres, in the centre of the town and presents the story of WW1 in the West Flanders Front region. Using bracelets given to you on arrival, you can activate the exhibits and read accounts of people from the First World War, tailored to be personal to yourself. There are also several films showing clips of the battles and a retelling of life in a WW1 Hospital. (N.B. The museum is closed for most of January and on Mondays between November and March.)

After free time and some lunch meet up with your experienced guide for a journey by coach around the 14-18 route visiting battlefields and memorials enroute. Stops may include Essex Farm where John McCrae wrote his famous ‘In Flanders Fields’ poem, Langemarck Cemetery which is one of only four German cemeteries in the Flanders region and Tyne Cot Cemetery which is the largest Commonwealth cemetery in the world. The contrast of the gleaming white headstones of Tyne Cot and the simple grey stones of Langemarck, surrounded by oak trees, both places of remembrance, but markedly different. Other sites including Hill 62 Museum / Sanctuary Wood and the Irish Peace Tower in the Island of Ireland Peace Park can be visited but more time may be required.

On the return to Ypres, there will be some free time to further discover this historical town before heading for dinner in a local restaurant before witnessing the Last Post.

At 8pm each evening, the Last Post Ceremony at **Menin Gate will commence.  During the war this was the call for all soldiers fighting in the fields outside the gates to head back to the city for the evening. However, many did not return back through the gates. The tradition continues each evening to this day and is one of the most poignant elements to any battlefields tour. We recommend arriving early to be able to see the ceremony taking place and the wreaths being carried.

Return to the hotel by coach.

**Note:  The Menin Gate is currently under renovation which expects to be complete by May 2025 so the ceremony will take place close by.

Arras and Somme Battlefields

Just over the northern border of France and with an experienced guide, we will tour the Somme Battlefields visiting several important sites including Lochnagar Crater, the largest crater of its kind at 300ft, created from charges packed into a tunnel and yet only one of 17 mines that blew up on 1st July 1916.

Thiepval Memorial is a striking memorial to over 72,000 officers and men of the UK and South African forces who have no known grave. Their names are inscribed on the walls. There is also a small cemetery at the site where French and Commonwealth soldiers lie side by side, their gravestones marking the difference of armies. A visit to the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme is a focal point of this day and a sombre experience.

A visit will also be made to Ulster Tower, Northern Ireland’s national war memorial and one of the first Memorials to be erected on the Western Front and commemorates the men of the 36th (Ulster) Division and all those from Ulster who served in WW1. We also recommend visits to Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial, Delville Wood or simply one of the many small roadside cemeteries, as the haunting history of the area is hard to miss.

We will also discover Arras which was almost completely rebuilt after being destroyed during the Battle of Arras in WW1.   Discover the historic streets and Flemish-style architecture of the squares. However, the town’s history lies not only above ground but under the streets of Arras lie a warren of chalk quarries that proved a strategic base for numerous assaults in WW1. The evocative Wellington Quarries museum relates the story of some 24,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers stationed there, 20m underground in 1917.

Return to the UK

If time allows, take in some final sightseeing before heading to Calais for the short sea ferry crossing to the UK

If you require a more specialised tour to a particular site or area then please let us know and we can tailor-make the tour to suit your requirements. There are numerous cemeteries, war graves and monuments dedicated to certain battalions, regions or divisions that can be included on tours.

Other areas including the Battle of Verdun and Mons, where the first and last shots of the war were fired, are possible along with tours specifically looking at The Somme or the Ypres Salient. We can also offer tours to the WW2 Battlefields in Normandy.