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Western Front Flexi Tour - 3 Days

YOUR TOUR INCLUDES:

Day 1 - Somme 1916 & 1918

Your tour begins in Amiens, in the heart of the Somme. The most convenient way to travel to Amiens is by train - it is only an hour north of Paris. You will be met by your guide at Amiens train station at 9.30am. You will then enjoy a full day visiting the sites associated with Australian courage and sacrifice on the Somme in both 1916 and 1918. Essential sites include the village of Pozieres, scene of the most costly battle in Australia’s history, where 23,000 men were killed or wounded in six weeks. Nearby is Mouquet Farm, where the Australians and Germans fought a bloody action in August 1916. Also spend time exploring the British sites associated with the Battle of the Somme, including the massive 30-metre-deep Lochnagar Mine Crater, the Thiepval Memorial (where the names of 72,000 missing men are recorded) and the preserved trenches at the Newfoundland Memorial Park, Beaumont-Hamel. Our attention will then turn to the 1918 battles on the Somme, with a visit to Villers-Bretonneux, the town that was liberated by Australian troops on Anzac Day 1918. Here we will visit Victoria School (with its wonderful small Australian museum), Adelaide Cemetery (where Australia’s Unknown Soldier lay before being reinterred in Canberra in 1993) and the imposing Australian National Memorial, where the names of nearly 11,000 Australians with no known grave in France are recorded. We will also visit the site of the crash of the Red Baron in 1918, the scene of the great Australian victory at Hamel and the Australian 2nd Divisional Memorial at Mont St Quentin. We will also see the remains of trenches captured by the Australians in their victory here in September 1918. We will then return to Amiens where you will check in to your 4-star hotel.

STAR INCLUSIONS: Pick-up from Amiens station - Full day touring the Australian battlefields of the Somme - Victoria School Museum - 4-star Amiens hotel

Day 2 - Bullecourt, Vimy Ridge and Fromelles

Today we will leave the Somme and drive north, passing through the Australian battlefields of 1917 and heading towards the town of Ypres, just across the Belgian border. Our first stop will be the battlefield of Bullecourt, where Australia lost more than 10,000 men in two bloody battles in April and May 1917. We will pay our respects to them at the Slouch Hat memorial in the centre of town and the Australian Memorial Park on the site of the German front line. Our next stop is the magnificent Canadian memorial at Vimy Ridge, where we will spend time wandering the maze of preserved trenches on the site. We then travel on to the very moving 1916 battlefield of Fromelles, where Australia lost 5533 men during its first action on the Western Front. While here we will visit the Australian Memorial Park, VC Corner Cemetery (the only all-Australian cemetery in France) and see the site of the recently discovered Australian mass grave at Pheasant Wood. Crossing the Belgian border, we will visit the battlefield of Messines, where Australian and New Zealand troops played a vital role in a huge British attack in June 1917. We will arrive in the town of Ypres late in the afternoon, giving us time to check into our 4-star hotel and explore the town’s charming main square. This evening we will walk to the Menin Gate, where the names of 54,000 missing British and Commonwealth soldiers are recorded, for the moving Last Post ceremony. The Ypres fire brigade has performed this bugle ceremony every day and in all weather since the memorial opened in 1927. The only interruption was during the four years of German occupation during the Second World War - the ceremony recommenced on the day the town was liberated. (B)

STAR INCLUSIONS: Full touring of the battlefields of Bullecourt, Vimy Ridge, Fromelles and Messines - Central 4-star Ypres hotel - Attendance at Lost Post Service at the Menin Gate

Day 3 - The Ypres Salient

The Ypres Salient was a bulge in the front line that curved around Ypres for most of the war. More than a million men were killed or wounded trying to gain control of this small patch of ground. Today we will explore the Australian battlefields in the Salient, places where the Anzacs made history in 1917. Our first stop is the impressive In Flanders Fields Museum, where a provocative collection of relics and displays chronicles the fighting in Flanders and the personal stories of the people involved. We will then visit the 5th Australian Division Memorial at Polygon Wood and see the graves of Private Hunter and Sergeant Calder, the two Australian soldiers who featured in Mat McLachlan's documentary 'Lost in Flanders'. We then get a taste of the devastation caused by four years of continuous artillery fire at the cratered landscape of Hill 60, before visiting Tyne Cot, the world's largest Commonwealth war cemetery. Tyne Cot sits in the heart of one of the most horrific battlefields of the war — Passchendaele. Our final stop today is at the German Cemetery at Langemarck, where we will learn about the men on the other side of the line. In the late afternoon our guide will drive us back across the French border to the city of Lille, where you will be dropped at the train station for a connection back to Paris or London. (You also have the option of staying on in Ypres or Lille.) (B)

STAR INCLUSIONS:Full day touring the Australian battlefields of the Ypres Salient - In Flanders Fields Museum - Transfer to Lille train station


Note: This itinerary can also be reversed, operating from Lille to Amiens, an excellent option if you are catching the Eurostar to Europe from London.

WHAT ARE STAR INCLUSIONS?: 'Star Inclusions' are the extra things we provide each day that make your tour really special. You don't pay extra for Star Inclusions - they are included in the tour cost, and many of them are exclusive to Mat McLachlan Battlefield Tours.

*Per person, twin share, land only. Single supplement: $374. Ask about our airfare deals, which offer great discounts when booked in conjunction with our tours.