Flanders, the Somme and Normandy: Canada's Battlefields

1. Jour 1 : Arrive in Paris

   Paris Charles de Gaulle or Orly to your hotel in central Paris, then the Seine at the Pont Royal and the Arc de Triomphe

   • Environ 1 h de route
   • Welcome dinner
   • Nuit : Paris
   Détail du jour 1

   Fly into Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) or Orly (ORY), where a driver meets you in arrivals for the drive to your hotel in central Paris. Plan to land by about 2 pm so you have time to rest before the evening (the latest arrival time is confirmed with your final itinerary). In the late afternoon your See Sight Tours guide meets the group for a short briefing: how the days run, which sites have steps or wet ground, and how to look up a relative's grave before we reach it. Then we walk down to the Seine at the Pont Royal, opposite the Musée d'Orsay, for a first look at the river, and take Metro line 1 from Tuileries straight to the Arc de Triomphe. There we begin the way the trip means to go on. Under the Arc de Triomphe lies France's Unknown Soldier of the First World War, buried there in 1921, and every evening at 6:30 pm veterans' associations rekindle the flame on his tomb. We stand with them for the short ceremony, then walk to a nearby restaurant for a welcome dinner together.

   Compris

   • Pick-up at Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) or Orly (ORY)
   • Welcome briefing with your guide
   • A short walk on the Seine at the Pont Royal with your guide
   • Metro ride to the Arc de Triomphe
   • The rekindling of the flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Arc de Triomphe
   • Welcome dinner

   Temps libre : Free until the late-afternoon briefing

   Activité : The ceremony is outdoors, takes about 30 minutes and is held every evening.

   

2. Jour 2 : North to Ypres and the Last Post

   Paris to Ypres (Ieper), Belgium

   • Environ 3.5 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
   • Nuit : Ypres
   Détail du jour 2

   We leave Paris after breakfast and drive about three and a quarter hours north, crossing into Belgium without a border stop, to Ypres, or Ieper in Flemish, the town British and Canadian soldiers called Wipers. It was shelled to rubble between 1914 and 1918 and rebuilt after the war, so the Cloth Hall and cathedral you see are faithful reconstructions. After lunch on the market square we spend the afternoon in the In Flanders Fields Museum inside the Cloth Hall, which tells the story of the Salient through the people who lived and died in it, and your guide sets out four years of fighting around the town so tomorrow's ground makes sense. Then there is time to check in and walk the ramparts. After an early dinner together we walk to the Menin Gate. Its walls carry the names of more than 54,000 Commonwealth soldiers missing in the Salient, about 7,000 of them Canadian, and every evening at 8 pm local buglers sound the Last Post beneath it, as they have since 1928. Arrive early: on summer evenings the crowd is deep.

   Compris

   • Drive from Paris to Ypres with your guide
   • Lunch in Ypres
   • The In Flanders Fields Museum in the Cloth Hall
   • Early dinner in Ypres
   • The Last Post at the Menin Gate, 8 pm

   Temps libre : Late afternoon free in Ypres

   Activité : The Menin Gate is a ten-minute walk from the market square; the ceremony lasts about 20 minutes, standing.

3. Jour 3 : The Ypres Salient: Passchendaele and Tyne Cot

   A loop of the Salient from Ypres: Essex Farm, St Julien, Zonnebeke, Crest Farm, Tyne Cot and Hill 62

   • Environ 1.5 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Ypres
   Détail du jour 3

   Today a specialist battlefield guide joins us for the ground the Canadians fought over. We start at Essex Farm, the dressing station on the canal bank where Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae of Guelph, Ontario, wrote In Flanders Fields in May 1915. A few minutes away the Brooding Soldier at St Julien remembers the Canadians who held the line through the first gas attacks that April. We cross the low ridge to Zonnebeke for the Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917 and its reconstructed underground dugout, then stand at Crest Farm, where the Canadian Corps took Passchendaele village in November 1917. Tyne Cot, the largest Commonwealth war cemetery anywhere, lies just below, with nearly 12,000 graves and almost 35,000 names of the missing on its rear wall. After lunch in Zonnebeke we stop at Hill 62 in Sanctuary Wood, the Canadian memorial for the Battle of Mount Sorrel in June 1916, and we are back in Ypres by mid-afternoon. The rest of the day is free; many guests go back to the Menin Gate for a second Last Post.

   Compris

   • A specialist battlefield guide for the Salient
   • Essex Farm Cemetery and the McCrae memorial
   • The St Julien Canadian Memorial (the Brooding Soldier)
   • Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917 at Zonnebeke
   • Crest Farm Canadian Memorial at Passchendaele
   • Tyne Cot Cemetery and visitor centre
   • Lunch in Zonnebeke
   • Hill 62 Canadian Memorial, Sanctuary Wood

   Activités en option

   • The Last Post at the Menin Gate a second time, 8 pm

   Option plus facile : Skip the museum dugout (steep stairs, low ceilings) and wait in the museum garden, or return to Ypres after lunch instead of Hill 62.

   Option plus active : In the free afternoon, walk the town ramparts from the Menin Gate to the Lille Gate and the Ramparts Cemetery, about 3 km.

   Temps libre : Afternoon and evening free in Ypres

   Activité : About 3 km on foot through the day, on paths, grass and cemetery lawns that are wet in most seasons.

4. Jour 4 : Vimy Ridge and Beaumont-Hamel

   Ypres to the Canadian National Vimy Memorial and the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial, then Amiens

   • Environ 3 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Amiens
   Détail du jour 4

   We cross back into France after breakfast and reach Vimy Ridge in about an hour. On 9 April 1917 all four divisions of the Canadian Corps attacked together for the first time and took the ridge in four days, at a cost of about 3,600 dead. Walter Allward's twin white pylons, unveiled in 1936, stand on land France granted to Canada, and the walls carry the names of more than 11,000 Canadians killed in France with no known grave. Canadian student guides lead us through the preserved trenches and down into the Grange Subway, the tunnel where troops waited before the attack. Lunch is near the ridge. In the afternoon we drive south to Beaumont-Hamel, where the Newfoundland Regiment went over the top on the morning of 1 July 1916, the first day of the Somme. Of about 800 men who advanced, only 68 answered the roll call the next morning. A bronze caribou looks over trench lines still sharp in the turf, and a student guide walks us through them. We reach Amiens by early evening for two nights.

   Compris

   • The Canadian National Vimy Memorial
   • Guided tour of the Vimy trenches and the Grange Subway with a Canadian student guide
   • Lunch near Vimy
   • The Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial with a student guide

   Option plus facile : Skip the tunnel (stairs, low and narrow passages) and walk the trench lines and the memorial with your See Sight Tours guide.

   Option plus active : At Beaumont-Hamel, walk the full park circuit out to Y Ravine Cemetery and the Danger Tree.

   Temps libre : Evening free in Amiens

   Activité : About 3 to 4 km on foot over the day, on grass, gravel and duckboards. The Vimy tunnel has steps and low ceilings, and tour times depend on the season.

5. Jour 5 : The Somme

   Amiens to Thiepval, Lochnagar Crater, Courcelette, Le Quesnel and Villers-Bretonneux, then back to Amiens

   • Environ 2.5 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Amiens
   Détail du jour 5

   A specialist Somme guide joins us for the day. We begin at Thiepval, where Edwin Lutyens' great brick arch carries the names of more than 72,000 British and South African soldiers missing on the Somme, most of them killed in the 1916 battle; the visitor centre beside it explains the battle plainly. Lochnagar Crater, blown under the German line at 7:28 am on 1 July 1916, is a few minutes away, and you can walk its rim. At Courcelette, Canada's memorial marks the village the Canadian Corps took on 15 September 1916, the day tanks were first used in battle. After lunch in Albert we drive south to Le Quesnel, the Canadian memorial for the Battle of Amiens on 8 August 1918, which opened the Hundred Days, then to Villers-Bretonneux, where Australians held the road to Amiens in April 1918, for the Australian National Memorial and the Sir John Monash Centre. We are back in Amiens by about 4 pm. Your guide then walks anyone who wants to the cathedral, the largest Gothic cathedral in France by volume, and the evening is free.

   Compris

   • A specialist battlefield guide for the Somme
   • The Thiepval Memorial and visitor centre
   • Lochnagar Crater at La Boisselle
   • The Courcelette Canadian Memorial
   • Lunch in Albert
   • The Le Quesnel Canadian Memorial
   • The Australian National Memorial and the Sir John Monash Centre, Villers-Bretonneux
   • A short walk with your guide to Amiens Cathedral after we return

   Activités en option

   • A boat through the Hortillonnages, Amiens's floating market gardens (April to October)

   Option plus facile : Stay with the van at Courcelette and Le Quesnel, where the memorials are seen from the roadside paths.

   Option plus active : Climb the tower of the Australian National Memorial for the view over the 1918 battlefield, then walk Amiens's Saint-Leu quarter by the river after we return.

   Temps libre : Late afternoon and evening free in Amiens

   Activité : About 3 km on foot, mostly on paths and grass.

   

6. Jour 6 : Dieppe, then on to Normandy

   Amiens to Dieppe, Puys and Pourville, then west across the Pont de Normandie to Bayeux

   • Environ 4.5 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Bayeux
   Détail du jour 6

   Today is the one long drive of the trip, about 340 km and four and a quarter hours at the wheel, because it moves us from the First World War front to the Second; the morning in Dieppe and a long lunch break it in two. We leave Amiens at 8 am and drive about an hour and a half to the coast. On 19 August 1942 about 5,000 Canadians landed at Dieppe in Operation Jubilee, and within a morning more than 900 were killed and almost 2,000 taken prisoner. With a local specialist guide we stand on Blue Beach at Puys, where the Royal Regiment of Canada was pinned under the cliff, walk the main beach below the castle to the Square du Canada, and see Green Beach at Pourville, where the South Saskatchewan Regiment crossed the bridge under fire. Lunch is seafood in Dieppe. On the way out we stop at the Dieppe Canadian War Cemetery, where the raid's dead lie in back-to-back rows as their captors buried them. We leave Dieppe about 3 pm for the drive of about 2.75 hours west to Bayeux, our base for three nights, arriving around 6 pm.

   Compris

   • A specialist guide for the Dieppe raid sites
   • Blue Beach at Puys
   • Dieppe main beach and the Square du Canada
   • Green Beach at Pourville
   • Lunch in Dieppe
   • The Dieppe Canadian War Cemetery

   Activités en option

   • The Mémorial du 19 août 1942 museum in Dieppe, in the lunch break, when open

   Temps libre : Evening free in Bayeux

   Activité : The longest drive of the trip, just over the 4-hour cap: leave Amiens 8 am, about 1.5 hours to Dieppe, leave Dieppe about 3 pm, about 2.75 hours to Bayeux with a comfort stop, arriving around 6 pm. About 2 km on foot, partly on shingle.

7. Jour 7 : Juno Beach

   Bayeux to Pegasus Bridge, Courseulles-sur-Mer, Bernières-sur-Mer and Saint-Aubin, then the Bény-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery

   • Environ 2 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Bayeux
   Détail du jour 7

   This is the Canadian day in Normandy. We leave Bayeux at 8:30 for Pegasus Bridge, where British glider troops landed just after midnight on 6 June 1944; the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion jumped the same night a few kilometres east as part of the 6th Airborne Division, and the Memorial Pegasus tells both stories. Then west along the coast to Courseulles-sur-Mer and the Juno Beach Centre, Canada's museum on the beach where about 14,000 Canadians came ashore on D-Day. Its guides take us out through Juno Park to the surviving German bunkers and down to the sand before we walk the galleries. After lunch by the harbour we stop at Bernières-sur-Mer, where the Queen's Own Rifles of Canada landed in front of a half-timbered house that now carries their name, and at Saint-Aubin. The day ends quietly at the Bény-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery, on a rise looking back towards the sea, with about 2,000 graves, nearly all of them Canadian. If you are looking for a particular grave, tell us before the trip and we take you to it. Back in Bayeux by late afternoon.

   Compris

   • Pegasus Bridge and the Memorial Pegasus
   • The Juno Beach Centre at Courseulles-sur-Mer, with a guided tour of Juno Park and the bunkers
   • Lunch in Courseulles-sur-Mer
   • Bernières-sur-Mer and the Queen's Own Rifles house
   • Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
   • The Bény-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery

   Option plus facile : Stay in the Juno Beach Centre's galleries instead of the walk through Juno Park and the bunkers.

   Option plus active : Walk the seafront from Bernières to Saint-Aubin, about 2 km, while the van meets you at the far end.

   Temps libre : Late afternoon and evening free in Bayeux

   Activité : About 3 to 4 km on foot, on sand, dune paths and grass.

8. Jour 8 : Omaha, Pointe du Hoc and Utah

   Bayeux to Arromanches, Omaha Beach and the Normandy American Cemetery, Pointe du Hoc and Utah Beach, then back to Bayeux

   • Environ 2.5 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Bayeux
   Détail du jour 8

   A specialist D-Day guide takes us along the rest of the invasion coast, so the Canadian landings sit in the whole picture. First Arromanches, on the edge of Gold Beach, where the remains of the Mulberry harbour, towed across the Channel in sections and sunk into place, still lie offshore; we look down on them from the clifftop. Then Omaha Beach and the Normandy American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, where more than 9,000 Americans are buried on the bluff above the sand. Lunch is a sit-down meal near Omaha. In the afternoon we walk the cratered headland of Pointe du Hoc, where US Rangers climbed the cliffs on ropes, then cross the Vire estuary to Utah Beach and its museum, built on the site of a German strongpoint where the American 4th Infantry Division came ashore. We are back in Bayeux in the early evening, and the evening is free: the old town's restaurants are a few minutes' walk from the hotel.

   Compris

   • A specialist D-Day guide for the day
   • Arromanches and the Mulberry harbour from the clifftop
   • Omaha Beach and the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial
   • Lunch near Omaha Beach
   • Pointe du Hoc
   • Utah Beach and the Utah Beach Museum

   Option plus facile : Look over Omaha Beach from the cemetery overlook instead of taking the path down to the sand, and keep to the main path at Pointe du Hoc.

   Option plus active : Walk down from the American Cemetery to Omaha Beach and back up, about 1.5 km on a steep path.

   Temps libre : Evening free in Bayeux

   Activité : About 4 to 5 km on foot, with uneven, cratered ground at Pointe du Hoc.

   

9. Jour 9 : Caen and the road back to Paris

   Bayeux War Cemetery, the Mémorial de Caen, the Abbaye d'Ardenne and the Bretteville-sur-Laize Canadian War Cemetery, then Paris

   • Environ 4 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
   • Nuit : Paris
   Détail du jour 9

   We leave Bayeux at 8:30 and stop first at the Bayeux War Cemetery, the largest Commonwealth cemetery of the Second World War in France, and the memorial across the road to more than 1,800 Commonwealth soldiers missing in the Battle of Normandy. Half an hour east, we reach the Mémorial de Caen for a group entry at about 10 am and spend about two hours in the city's large museum on how the war came and how the battle for Caen was fought, then have lunch in its restaurant. On the western edge of Caen, in the walled garden of the Abbaye d'Ardenne, a small memorial marks where soldiers of the 12th SS murdered 20 Canadian prisoners in June 1944; we stop there in quiet. South of the city, on the road to Falaise, the Bretteville-sur-Laize Canadian War Cemetery holds almost 3,000 Canadians who died in the last weeks of the Normandy campaign. We leave it by about 3 pm for the three hours to Paris, with a comfort stop, reaching the hotel around 6:30 pm. The farewell dinner is at 8 pm, so there is time to rest and change first.

   Compris

   • Bayeux War Cemetery and the Bayeux Memorial
   • The Mémorial de Caen
   • Lunch at the Mémorial de Caen
   • The Canadian memorial garden at the Abbaye d'Ardenne
   • The Bretteville-sur-Laize Canadian War Cemetery
   • Farewell dinner in Paris, 8 pm

   Temps libre : Time to rest at the hotel before the farewell dinner

   Activité : Leave Bayeux 8:30, Mémorial de Caen about 10 am to noon, leave Bretteville-sur-Laize about 3 pm, Paris around 6:30 pm. Most of the walking today is inside the museum.

10. Jour 10 : Depart Paris

    Your hotel in central Paris to Charles de Gaulle (CDG) or Orly (ORY)

    • Environ 1 h de route
    • Petit-déjeuner
    Détail du jour 10

    The trip ends after breakfast. A driver takes you from the hotel to Charles de Gaulle (CDG) or Orly (ORY) at a time that fits your flight, and your guide sorts the transfer times with the group the evening before, so nobody waits around in the lobby. Allow about an hour for the drive across the city and two to three hours at the airport for an international departure. If you have a free morning before an afternoon flight, the Musée de l'Armée at Les Invalides, with its galleries on both world wars, is a short taxi ride from most central hotels; a walk along the Seine or a coffee on a café terrace is the gentler choice after nine full days. If you are staying on, we can book extra nights in Paris and move your airport transfer to the later date. Book a flight leaving after about 11 am so the morning is not rushed.

    Compris

    • Drop-off at Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) or Orly (ORY)

    Activités en option

    • The Musée de l'Armée at Les Invalides

    Temps libre : Free until your airport transfer

    Activité : Book a flight leaving after about 11 am.

Faune et météo : Flanders, the Somme and the Normandy coast see rain in every month and wind off the Channel on the beaches. May to September brings long evenings for the Last Post and poppies at field edges from late May into June; April and October are cooler and quieter. Several museums close for part of December and January, so we do not run then.

• Paris1 nuit
• Ypres2 nuits
• Amiens2 nuits
• Bayeux3 nuits
• Paris1 nuit