Home • Contact Us • Tours • Tours List • Excursions • Coach Hire • Booking • History • Coach Fleet • Gallery • Links • Enquiry Form • Sitemap

Home • Contact Us • Tours • Tours List • Excursions • Coach Hire • Booking • History • Coach Fleet • Gallery • Links • Enquiry Form • Sitemap

You are here...Tours 2011...Battlefields of the Western Front

BATTLEFIELDS OF THE WESTERN FRONT

Staying at the Four Star Best Western Ambassador Hotel Menen

Monday 23rd – Thursday 26th May 2011

4 Days

 

Day 1

Our early departure today allows us to be in Dover for our late morning short sea crossing to Calais. On reaching Calais we rejoin our coach and begin our tour of the Western Front. We travel through Dunkerque and carry on  to Diksmuide where we visit “The Trench of Death”. The trench was dug without any protection and under incessant, violent enemy fire. Its purpose was to retake the machine gun base occupied by the Germans on the left bank of the river. For fifty months this was the heart of the Belgian resistance until the successful Battle of Flanders began on September 28th 1918. After our visit to Diksmuide , time permitting we will visit the IJzer Tower. The eighty five metre tower has the slogan “no more war” added in four languages. We continue our journey to Menen where we spend the next three nights at The Four Star Best Western Ambassador Hotel. The famous gate in Ypres is named after this pretty market town.

 

Day 2

Today we visit Tyne Cot Cemetery, The largest Commonwealth Cemetery in the world and a reminder of the bloody battle of Passchendale where thousands of soldiers died in a period of 100 days for a gain of just five miles. We will also visit Langemark German Cemetery and Essex Farm Cemetery before making our way to Ypres for lunch and a little free time. After lunch we will visit In Flanders Field Museum. This is a war museum with a message of peace. On our return journey back to Menen we make a visit to the unmissable Sanctuary Wood Trenches and Museum. These preserved trenches show us the layout and we can also see a collection of equipment taken from the battlefield in the vicinity plus a rare collection of three dimensional photo images. This evening we have an early dinner and then return to Ypres for the Last Post ceremony at The Menin Gate. At exactly 20.00 hours traffic stops and six buglers play the Last Post and after a short silence they then play Reveille.

 

Day 3

Our tour today will take us to The Somme . We will visit The Historial Museum at Peronne and then we follow the route of remembrance to Albert stopping at La Boisselle, the largest British Mine Crater on the Western Front.Our lunch stop today will be in Albert before a visit to Thiepval where we have time at the memorial, the visitor centre and the Ulster Tower which commemorates those from Northern Ireland who fell at The Somme. We will have a guided tour of Beaumont Hamel a seventy four acre preserved battlefield park dedicated to the commemoration of the Dominion of Newfoundland  forces killed during World War One.

 

Day 4

This morning we leave Menen and make our way to Calais for our return sea crossing to Dover. En-route we visit Vimy Ridge and take a tour of the tunnels. We will then make a lunch stop at Arras where the Battle of Arras was fought in 1917 with British, Canadian, New Zealand and Australian troops attacking German Trenches. After our crossing to Dover we rejoin our coach for our homeward journey arriving late evening.

 

INCLUDED IN THE PRICE

Luxury coach travel

Three nights half board

Return ferry crossing

Entrance to In Flanders Field Museum

Entrance to Sanctuary Wood Trenches

Entrance to Historial Museum at Peronne

Guided  tour of Beaumont Hamel

Services of a tour manager

 

PRICE PER PERSON

£299.00  per person (sharing twin/double)

£372.00  per person (single)