Western Front Explorer Battlefield Tour

Western Front Explorer with Leger Holidays.  Nine days from GBP599.
This unique battlefield tour takes you from one end of the Western Front battlefields to another.

9-Day Break
Day 1
To Ypres or Diksmuide area for a two night stay.
Day 2
Ypres and Tyne Cot (included). We visit the northern end of the Western Front around the Belgian town of Nieuport. Here we see where the front line met the channel coast, and visit the Nieuport Memorial which commemorates British soldiers who served in this sector. We then follow the line of the Belgian army trenches via Ramscappelle to Pervyse, seeing bunkers and learning the story of two British nurses who worked in the cellars of the village. After lunch we visit Diksmuide, before travelling to the Belgian cemetery at Houthulst. Coming into Flanders we visit Tyne Cot Cemetery and the Visitors Centre on a battlefield where 250,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers died in WW1. We end the day in Ypres to attend the moving Last Post ceremony B

Day 3
Artois and Hindenburg Line (included). Departing Ypres we travel south through Northern France, via the battlefields of 1915, stopping at the French cemetery and memorial on the high ground of Notre Dame de Lorette. We then take lunch in Arras before driving via Cambrai to the ground near Bellicourt, where the German Hindenburg Line defences were smashed in 1918. We then continue to our hotel in Reims for three nights. B

Day 4
Marne Battlefields (included). We travel into the forest where the Armistice was signed on 11th November 1918, seeing the site where the railway carriages carrying the Allied and German delegates met, and visiting the excellent nearby museum. Lunchtime in central Compiegne. In the afternoon we drive through the Marne battlefields to the impressive ‘Phantoms’ memorial on the hillside above the Marne battlefields, seeing the point where the British Expeditionary Force crossed the Marne River, and the nearby La Ferte Sous Jouarre Memorial which commemorates those who died in the Retreat From Mons, and on the Marne and Aisne and have no known grave. B

Day 5
Champagne Battlefields (included). Today we explore the Champagne east of Reims, where the French fought major offensives in 1915 and 1917, and the Americans fought in 1918. We begin at the impressive Fort la Pompelle, which stood on the front line for four years and remains in its wartime state, now also housing an excellent museum. We then see the flat Champagne battlefield, with its memorials and cemetery near Prosnes, before going to the unique Russian cemetery and church. After lunch we see the new Champagne Battles museum, and then visit Navarin Farm, still overlooking shattered trenches from 1915. We end at Sommepy, at the American Memorial to the battles of 1918. B

Day 6
End of the Western Front (included). We depart Reims for our hotel near Nancy, close to the ‘end of the Western Front’. En-route we see the extensive systems of preserved trenches in the St Mihiel Salient, including the impressive ‘Thirtsy Trench’ system. We also visit the moving Marbotte Church, a hospital during the fighting, with its magnificent stained glass windows and many memorials. B

Day 7
La Linge (included). To complete our tour of the Western Front we travel into the area where the trenches petered out on the Swiss border. At La Linge we see the superb museum and trenches cut into the hillside; an area where the trench system of the Great War, which cost so many lives, came to an end across the Haut-Rhin area. B

Day 8
Argonne Forest and Romagne (included). Leaving Nancy we return to the Reims area, and en-route we look at the Argonne forest following General Pershing’s American Expeditionary Force in the fighting in September 1918, seeing the War Museum in Romagne and then on to the Meuse-Argonne US Cemetery, the largest US Cemetery in Europe with more than 14,000 graves – a huge hillside of white crosses, a moving way to end this unique battlefield tour. B

Day 9
To Calais for our return journey home. B

Included Meals: B=Breakfast

Please Note: due to the nature of the battlefield sites we are visiting there will be some walking involved, and the length of the Western Front battlefields also means some travelling and a regular change of hotel.

Tour Includes
- Free Local Joining Points
- Travel by executive coach
- 8 nights’ accommodation with continental breakfast
- Specialist Battlefields Guide
- 7 Battlefield visits

Visit the Leger Holidays website for more information