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
5 Day Itinerary
Day 1
Local departure by coach, then to our hotel in Reims for a four-night stay.
Day 2 - Aisne 1914 – Chemin Des Dames
We start this morning just outside Reims, on the spot where the French Army used tanks for the first time in April 1917 as part of the attack on the Chemin des Dames. We’ll see the memorial and life-sized models of French tanks, before looking at the ‘Old Contemptibles’ in the fighting here in 1914 – the men of the British Army. We see the church and British graves at Soupir and Vendresse, and the memorial at Cerny. Here, we come onto the Chemin des Dames, the high ground above Reims, and visit the French cemetery and memorial chapel. After lunch in Soissons, where you can visit the Soissons Memorial to the Missing which commemorates British soldiers who fell in 1918, we discover the memorials and bunkers of the Moulin de Laffaux, a major French battle site throughout the war. We then go beneath the battlefield into the ‘Caverne du Dragon’ – the Dragon’s Cave. This is where the French and Germans fought each other in a quarry deep underground. We continue across the Chemin des Dames back to Reims.
Meals - Breakfast
Day 3 - Verdun – The Mincing Machine
Today we head for Verdun; a battle of 300 days, it was the longest of the war and called the ‘Mincing Machine’ by the soldiers due to the way it drew in and destroyed so many French regiments. We start at the impressive Memorial Museum at Fleury, with its many displays, artefacts and the ‘lost village’ of Fleury close by. We then visit the Ossuary and French Cemetery at Douaumont, before taking lunch in Verdun. In the afternoon we explore two of the iconic forts, which featured so heavily in the battle – Fort Douaumont and Fort Vaux. Inside you can walk the corridors, admire the gun turrets and museums, and see the massive shell craters on the roof caused by heavy guns from both sides.
Meals - Breakfast
Day 4 - Champagne – Argonne
Today we’ll explore the battlefields east of Reims, starting in the Argonne sector with a visit to the American Memorial at Montfaucon, before paying our respects at the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery – the largest US War Cemetery in Europe with more than 14,000 graves. Time for lunch at the Romagne War Museum, viewing the incredible private collection of militaria. In the afternoon, we explore the Champagne battlefields with a visit to the trenches at Main de Massiges: here a whole trench system has been reconstructed on a hillside alongside original mine craters with sandbags, duckboards and firing positions. You can walk the trenches, go in the dugouts and see the dressing station. Our day ends at the Navarin Farm Memorial to the American and French soldiers of the Champagne; we’ll learn of the story of a former British Colonel, who having been court martialled served as a Stretcher Bearer here in the French Foreign legion.
Meals - Breakfast
Day 5
Return home.
Meals - Breakfast