The Maginot Line

Itinerary

7-Day Itinerary

• Day 1

  Local departure by coach or Door-to-Door service, then to northern France for an overnight stay.

• Day 2 - Blitzkrieg – Villy La Ferte

  We begin the Ardennes where the German Blitzkrieg swept into France in May 1940, and travel to Villy la Ferte, one part of the Maginot Line that witnessed heavy fighting. We see the damaged bunkers and turrets, the anti-tank rails and barbed wire, and have a guided visit inside the fort, seeing the museum and cemetery here too. We then continue to our hotel in the Vosges for four nights.

  Meals - Breakfast, Dinner

• Day 3 - Ouvrage Schoenenbourg, Hagenau & Ouvrage Four a Chaux

  Today we begin our visits to the Maginot Line fortifications in Eastern France and start at Ouvrage Schoenenbourg, where some of the heaviest combat along the Maginot Line took place in 1940. Over 17,000 shells were fired from the bunkers here and it came under the bombardment from over 3,000 shells. We explore the site, seeing the bunkers and museum.

  We then take lunchtime in Hagenau, a town where Easy Company ‘The Band of Brothers’ operated their last patrol in 1945. In the afternoon, we visit Ouvrage Four a Chaux, which faced German troops advancing through the Vosges and was bombed by Stukas. Here we visit the tunnels, bunkers and museum.

  Meals - Breakfast, Dinner

• Day 4 - Maginot Line Bunkers & Liberation

  Today we look at a series of Maginot Line bunker systems in the Vosges and discuss the Liberation of the region by Free French troops at the end of WW2. We start at the Memorial Museum of the Maginot Line at Marckolsheim, an excellent museum with an original casemate bunker and a Free French Sherman tank on display.

  In the afternoon, we visit the Bunker Museum at Hatten and nearby Casemate Esch. Both of these were Maginot bunker systems and have excellent museums of the fighting here with tanks and equipment on display.

  Meals - Breakfast, Dinner

• Day 5 - Ouvrage Simershof & MM Park Tank Museum

  Simershof was one of the main Maginot Line forts built in the 1930s, and we spend this morning taking a guided tour of the site. The scene of fighting during Operation Nordwind, we also look at this final German Offensive in France during WW2.

  After lunch we visit the MM Park France, an incredible and unique museum with over 130 tanks and armoured vehicles from all nationalities on display, including an important collection of French tanks and vehicles from the 1940 campaign.

  Meals - Breakfast, Dinner

• Day 6 - Ouvrage Hackenberg

  We depart the Vosges and visit Ouvrage Hackenberg, a large Maginot Line fortress with a working railway line inside which we travel on as part of our visit. After lunch we travel to Reims for an overnight stay.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 7

  Return home.

  Meals - Breakfast

Accommodation

You will stay for four nights at the 3-star Des Vosges in Klingenthal, near Obernai.

Overnight stays in France will be in city-style hotels.