Description

Day 1 : Battlefields of the Somme

Pick up in Lille at 9:30am.
Visit of Vimy Ridge probably the most popular battlefield site. Some Americans joined the Canadian army in 1915 as individuals and took part of the battle of Vimy in 1917.

Visit the Somme battlefields and visit the American monument at Bellicourt and the Riqueval tunnel where the 27th and the 30th U.S Divisions attached to British army’s broke through the Hindenburg Line in September 1918. Visit of the Somme American cemetery at Bony and the graves of 1.844 soldiers who lost their lives in the operations in the area and at Cantigny.

Included Pick up in Lille or Ypres, lunch, entrée fees, accommodation *** hotel  Ypres.

Day 2 : Messines, Ypres and Poperinge

We visit the area of Ploegsteert and the Christmas Truce. Discover the battlefields of the explosion of the mines on 7 June 1917. We visit craters at Hill 60.
We visit Bayernwald the German trenches and the site of Kemmel and Vierstraete where Americans saw action in September 1918. We visit the American memorial.

In Poperinge we visit Lysenthoek and show our respect to Americans buried there. We visit Talbot House and find out about the life of the soldiers behind the front line, the evacuation of the wounded, and the involvement of a great American doctor Harvey Cushing and Nurse Helen Fairchild.

At the end of the day: Last Post at the Menin Gate.

Included breakfast,  lunch, entrée fees, accommodation *** hotel Ypres.

Day 3 : Zonnebeke and Passchendaele

In Zonnebeke we visit the Passendaele experience museum with trenches, tunnels and discover the importance of the Americans at the end and after the war: helping the local people coming back from exile They help building provisional houses and send some food to Poor Little Belgium

We visit the site where Canadians (amongst the Canadians some Americans) have been involved in the first Gas attack.
We visit the German cemetery in Langemark We visit and the site where the Canadian doctor McCrae wrote his famous poem “Flanders Fields” and visit Flanders Field museum in Ypres.

At the end of the tour around 17.00 hour we take you back to a train station for the continuation of your holiday.

Included breakfast, lunch, entrée fees, drop of Ypres or Lille.