Overview

Evocative and thought provoking, a battlefield tour can help students to understand the past and reflect on the significance of Remembrance.

“No one can fail to be moved by a visit to Ypres (Ieper in Flemish or "Wipers" to the troops). Walking around this pretty medieval city, it is hard to imagine the incredible highs and lows it has endured. Extreme wealth in the Middle Ages and then, less than one hundred years ago, reduced to rubble during World War I. It is a fitting reminder of people's resilience and their ability to bounce back.”

Ypres was one of the most important cloth producing and cloth trading cities of the county of Flanders in the high Middle-Ages. By 1918 almost nothing remained of the city, because it was in the middle of the frontline between the German and the Allied Armies. Ypres was bombed to pieces and almost wiped off the face of the earth.

Our tours aim to enhance a student’s visit to the battlefields. It is easy to provide itineraries that are run of the mill and the same as other companies but we like to go that bit further. We will use trench maps to understand the landscape, poetry, regimental and soldier’s diaries and letters to provide a thought provoking experience. All groups will be given the opportunity to provide information about individuals for research, or why not take a few names off the local war memorial for research, or use a local regiment, and bring the group a collective connection with the Great War?

NB. Please note that the In Flanders Fields Museum is undergoing total refurbishment and improvement over a protracted period, ahead of the centenary of the outbreak of The Great War, and is due to re-open on 1^st April, 2012.
It will be permanently closed from 19^th September, 2011 to 31^st March, 2012.

Accommodation

Menin Gate Hotel, Ypres

This is excellent accommodation that has been specifically designed for school groups and is of a high standard. The building originated in 1896 but was rebuilt in 1927 after WW1. It has an enviable location opposite the Menin Gate and close to the market square and Cloth Hall.The accommodation for students is in multi-bedded rooms with private facilities. Adults are provided with single or twin bedded rooms. Guests should bring towels. The capacity is 52 persons. Meals are buffet/self service style with a packed lunch. Any special dietary needs can be catered for if advised in advance. There are a range of facilities at the hotel which include a games room, TV room, teacher staff room.

There are two other hotels under the same management and of the same standard. The Poppies has a capacity for 73 and The Salient for 103 persons. The three hotels offer the same standard of accommodation and all are conveniently located for the amenities of the town. Groups will be allocated according to their group size and availability.

Hotel Munchenhof, Langemarck

3 Star

The Munchenhof is a family run hotel that extends a warm welcome to its groups and offers accommodation and a facilities of a high standard. The hotel comprises two buildings that can accommodate a group each, 54 and 69 beds in each building respectively. All rooms are en-suite with 2-4 bedded rooms for students and twin/single for accompanying adults. Meals are self service and buffet style so that all diets are catered for. The hotel offers a wide range of facilities that includes a basement disco for groups use (125€), a 4-lane bowling alley (small supplement), games room with table football, pool table, electronic games and DVD video and TV room. A meeting room is also available. Outside there is a garden and football pitch.

Sample Itinerary

• Day 1

  Depart from school for journey to France. Afternoon visit to Talbot House, Poperinghe*
  Arrive accommodation and settle in.
• Day 2

  In Flanders Field Museum. Sanctuary Wood/Hill 62, Hooge Crater, Hellfire Corner, Essex Farm Cemetery and Dressing Station.
  Eve: Bowling.
• Day 3

  1^st Battle Ypres at Messines, Hill 60, Passchendaele Memorial Museum, Tyne Cot, Langemarck German cemetery
  Eve: Menin Gate and Last Post Ceremony.
• Day 4

  Free time in Ypres to visit chocolatier or for shopping*

  Depart afternoon for return to UK

  * This is dependent upon the distance of the school from the channel port.

  This is a suggested itinerary only and can be of any length, combined in a variety of ways and be tailored to include the excursions and visits that you require. Any quotation will INCLUDE excursion and entry fees as stated in the itinerary. We will provide a guide price for any additional visits/activities.

Excursions

WHAT IS INCLUDED:-

• Transport to France by executive coach and ferry crossing.
• Course tailor made in consultation with group leader
• All course materials
• Hotel or holiday centre accommodation, full board and multi bed rooms for students and twin/single rooms for teachers.
• Meals are full board with packed or cold lunch   

EXCURSIONS

YPRES.

The original Ypres Salient Memorial Museum was refurbished and renamed as the In Flanders Fields Museum in 1998.
The IFFM is more than a museum. It is an interactive war museum bearing a message of peace. It is a captivating experience in which personal testimonies of ordinary men and women, civilians and soldiers take you back to Ypres and the Westhoek between 1914 and 1918, i.e. the Great War.

MENIN GATE LAST POST.

The Memorial to commemorate the names of over 54,000 officers and men of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth Forces who died in the Ypres Salient before 16^th August 1917 and who have no known grave. Not to be missed is the Last Post ceremony, performed every evening at 8pm. It is also possible to lay a wreath during the ceremony.

SANCTUARY WOOD & HILL 62.

After the First World War a farmer returned to reclaim his land in and around what was left of the wood he had left in 1914. A section of the original wood and the trenches in it were cleared of debris and casualties but generally the farmer left a section of a British trench system as he found it.
This site is now one of the few places on the Ypres Salient battlefields where an original trench layout can be seen in some semblance of what it might have looked like. Elsewhere the trenches were filled in and ploughed over by returning farmers leaving only the occasional chalky outline of what had once been there.

ESSEX FARM CEMETERY & DRESSING STATION.

At the rear of Essex Farm cemetery, near the western bank of the Ieper-Ijser canal, there are WW1 battlefield remains in the form of a British concrete bunker with a series of rooms. The bunker was renovated and preserved in the 1990s as it is the site of a British Army Advanced Dressing Station. The youngest soldier to die in the Ypres Salient, 15 year old Rifleman Joe Strudwick is buried in the cemetery.

HOOGE CRATER MUSEUM.

The Hooge Crater museum was opened by Roger and Rosita de Smul in 1994 in a renovated chapel and small school on the Ypres-Menin Road. Since then the museum has expanded several times and now holds many of the finest WWI collections in the area. It contains a unique collection of First World War uniforms, displays and military objects.

MESSINES MUSEUM.

The small museum contains a collection of weapons, uniforms, pictures and photographs, maps and documents. The museum also has an exhibition on the history of Messines and the abbey. The museum is located in the centre of Messines (known locally by its Flemmish name, Mesen) in the town hall on the market place.

TALBOT HOUSE.

Talbot House today is a living museum. Originally owned by a Belgian brewer, the house was evacuated during the war and rented to the British Army for 150 francs a month. A condition of the rental was that the forces would clear the house and refurnish it. It became the a British Club for troops moving up to and coming out of the line and was the brainchild of Rev Tubby Clayton – it was to be a place where soldiers could relax regardless of rank, “all rank abandon, ye who enter here”.

PASSCHENDAELE MEMORIAL MUSEUM.

The Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917 was opened in Zonnebeke Chateau on 25 April (ANZAC Day) 2004. Zonnebeke and Passendale are two little villages, at a stone's throw from Ypres. During the British attack of 1917, there were 500.000 casulaties in 100 days for a gain territory of only 5 miles. Passchendaele became an international symbol of senseless military violence in its most cruel form.
The Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917 is an ideal starting point for a visit to the old battlefields, an absolute must for tourists and specialists. A visit will vividly evoke the horror of the battle and there is the opportunity experience the road to Passchendaele. Additional visits will include Tyne Cot, Bayernwald German trenches, and Polygon Wood with a guide.

TYNE COT CEMETERY.

The largest and most impressive is the Tyne Cot cemetery, which is situated to the south of the village of Passendale. The name 'Tyne Cot' was given because on the site of the present cemetery, a cottage used to stand. The British soldiers abbreviated the word cottage to 'Cot' and coupled it with the name of the river Tyne in Northern-England. The entrance gate to Tyne Cot reminds of this cottage.
A unique feature is the Cross of Sacrifice,that was erected above a German bunker that was taken by the allied on October 4th 1917 at the cost of numerous human lives.

CROONAERT WOOD OR BAYERWALD.

This small area of woodland was taken by German troops in 1914, and during the winter of 1914/15 a system of trenches was constructed in what the Allies called 'Croonaert Wood', but which the Germans named 'Bayerwald' ('Bavarian Wood') as it was Bavarian units which had first been stationed here. Adolf Hitler had served here in 1914/15, and was awarded an Iron Cross close by, while working as a Company Runner. He returned to visit the site in June 1940, following the fall of France. On display now is a whole system of re-created German trenches, which make fascinating viewing. The site is further enhanced with information panels, with clear text and many wartime photographs.

LANGEMARCK GERMAN CEMETERY.

The Langemarck cemetery is well known and well visited. With over 44,000 burials it is one of the largest in France and has an aura of its own. The German war graves commission have successfully identified nearly 17,000 of 24,000 “unknown” soldiers and since 1984 have inscribed their name on granite blocks and changed all the grave markers.

NEUVILLE SUR VAAST.

Originally established by the French in 1919 as a concentration cemetery for German war casualties from the region north and east of Arras, it is the largest German cemetery in France with over 44,000 burials. The fatalities are a testament to the frequency of engagement in the battle of Artois in autumn 1914, spring 1915 and autumn 1915; and the battles of Arras in autumn 1914, spring 1917 and spring 1918. It is located not far from Vimy and Notre Dame de Lorette.

TRENCH OF DEATH.

On the whole of the Belgian 1914-1918 front, where each inch of severely disputed ground awakens feelings of misery or glory, there is no spot more symbolical for fierce resistance and tenacious heroism than the famous Trench of Death at Diksmuide. During four years this sinister trench, a very advanced post of the Belgian defence, was the theatre of incessant and murderous combats. Artillery and mortar shells, incessant alerts, heavy gunfire, unexpected grenades or sudden attacks, such was for fifty months the immovable and demoralising war in this narrow gallery. A well deserved nickname!