WWI Tour In Flanders Fields & The Battle of the Somme

Day 1 – Talbot House

Board our private executive coach at your designated pick up points – take the cross Channel ferry from your preferred port – after meeting our professional battlefield guide we visit Talbot House in Poperinge established by Tubby Clayton and Neville Talbot in 1915 and the birthplace of the Toc H movement – continue to the 4* Best Western Plus Alize Hotel in Mouscron – dinner in our hotel.

Day 2 – Ypres Salient & ‘Last Post’ Ceremony

Our battlefield guide takes us to see the sights and monuments of the infamous Ypres Salient in Belgium including the Ploegsteert Memorial to the Missing and the site of the Christmas Truce of 1914 – along the Messines Ridge, the area of the largest mining operation of the War, and then to the crypt of Messines church which was used as a dressing station during the War – the reconstructed German trenches at Croonaert Wood – time for lunch at the famous Hooge Crater Museum which houses a collection of arms and equipment from the War – the Worcestershire Regiment Memorial and the Passchendaele Museum keeps the memory alive of the 500,000 causalities of Passchendaele through images and films – Tyne Cot British and Commonwealth Cemetery and Memorial is the largest of its type in the world – this evening we attend the deeply moving ‘Last Post’ Ceremony under the Menin Gate which bears the names of almost 55,000 men whose bodies were never found.

Day 3 – The Somme

The Museum of the Great War at Peronne contemplates the War on the front line and the effect it had on civilians behind the lines – after seeing the largest British Mine Crater at La Boiselle, we spend time at the South African Memorial at Delville Wood, Mametz Wood Welsh Memorial and Devonshire Trench British Cemetery – the largest British memorial in the world is at Thiepval – continue to the preserved trenches at Newfoundland Park and the Sunken Road at Beaumont Hamel – finish our time on the Somme at Sheffield Park, a memorial to the men of the many ‘pals’ battalions who fought in the area of Serre – dinner in our hotel.

Day 4 – Ypres

Free time in Ypres and a chance to visit the Flanders Fields Museum in the centre of the town – continue for our Channel crossing back to the UK and then return to our original departure points with comfort stops en route.