Flanders Fields — Britain's Bastion On The Western Front
- Duration: 4 days
- Board Basis: Bed & Breakfast
- Tour Ref: D2TLEGBFY
Holiday Summary
- Travel Type: Coach
PLEASE NOTE: Price is per person and based on two people sharing a twin/double room. Single room supplements and upgrades are not included.
Itinerary
2020 Itinerary
Day 1
Local departure by coach, then to Ypres, where we stay for three nights.
Day 2 - In Flanders Fields
We start our tour at Essex Farm, where Canadian poet John McCrae wrote ‘In Flanders Fields’ in 1915 seeing the concrete Dressing Station Bunkers and the nearby cemetery and memorials. At the new Visitor’s Centre at the Zwanhof we look at the static front north of Ypres, visiting the preserved Yorkshire Trench. We then look at the mining operations on the Bellewaarde Ridge at Railway Wood, seeing the unique Royal Engineers Grave and the newly-accessible WW1 mine craters. After lunch at Hooge, with a visit to the trenches here, we travel down the Messines Ridge to Messines itself before seeing the Ploegsteert Memorial to the Missing. We end the day at Prowse Point where we look at the story of the Christmas Truce in 1914 seeing the memorials and discussing myth over reality.
Meals - Breakfast
Day 3 - Tyne Cot
Today we start at Tyne Cot Cemetery, the largest British and Commonwealth Cemetery in the world. We then look at gas warfare in WW1, seeing the moving Brooding Soldier Memorial at Vancouver Corner. At Langemarck we look at the burial of the German dead and then travel to Hooge Crater Café for our lunch period. In the afternoon we visit Polygon Wood and Black Watch Corner, seeing one of the bunkers in the wood. We then see Zillebeke Churchyard, the so-called Aristocrat’s Cemetery where many regular soldiers from 1914 are buried, and end at Hill 60: a large area of preserved battlefield with bunkers and mine craters.
Meals - Breakfast
Day 4
Return home.
Meals - Breakfast