WWI Battlefields

Depart Méridien Etoile Paris at 09:00 bound for Flanders Fields. Visit the Ypres Salient battlefields, including Hill 60, Polygon Wood, the Passchendaele Memorial and Tyne Cot Cemetery. In the town of Ypres, hear the Last Post sounded at the Menin Gate. Continue to your hotel and join your Travel Director for a Welcome Drink. Stay: Mercure Lille Center Grand Place Hotel.

See the Australian cemetery of Fromelles, commemorating one of the darkest days in Australian military history. Explore Arras with Insight Choice. Spend time at Vimy Ridge and walk among original trenches or learn about the efforts of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Continue to Amiens and perhaps visit the impressive cathedral? (B) Stay: Kyriad Prestige, Amiens.

Meet your Local Expert to explore the key battlefields of the Somme. Visit the Lochnagar Crater, the South African and New Zealand Memorials at Longueval, Newfoundland Memorial and Museum and the Franco-British Memorial at Thiepval. Enjoy a stop in Albert to see the church and hear the legends of the Golden Virgin statue atop - once a beacon to many soldiers who passed through the town during the Battle of the Somme.

Afterwards, explore Beaumont-Hamel, one of the largest allied offensives of the war, and return to Amiens where you will have the afternoon at leisure. Maybe do a little shopping or spend some time in the historic Saint-Leu district? (B/DW)

Visit the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux and the Franco-Australian Museum in the local Victoria School. Stop to explore Le Hamel and then continue to Péronne. On return to Paris, a stop is made at Charles De Gaulle Airport. For those departing in the evening, please do not schedule flights before 20:00. Alternatively, the coach will drop you at the Méridien Etoile Paris hotel. (B)