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Canadian War Sites Tour Belgium and France Spring Tour April 4 – 18, 2008 Small group tour (8-17) |
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| Features and Sites In Belgium
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Your Executive Worldwide Travel Tour Itinerary |
| Day #1 – Friday, April 4 – Depart
Canada from Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto for the flight to Paris. Day #2 – Saturday, April 5 – Arrive Charles De Gaulle, Paris early morning. Transfer from Charles De Gaulle to Ypres. Free time for lunch and settling in at the Hotel Reverie, our home for the next four nights. Late afternoon, visit Ypres, scene of some of the worst fighting of WW I, and home to 2 memorials which Canadians especially revere, the Menin Gate, erected to the memory of nearly 55,000 Commonwealth dead who fell in Belgium and have no known grave, and St. George’s Church, constructed after the war in order to provide a place of worship for the many English families whose men were working on the cemeteries and memorials. This evening we will attend the Menin Gate Ceremony – the sounding of the Last Post, at 8:00 p.m. Dinner at hotel. |   |
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Day #3 – Sunday, April 6 – Following breakfast
at the hotel, we begin our tour of Flanders Fields including the Ypres Salient battle sites:
Essex Farm Cemetery, where John McCrae wrote his famous poem, a 1915 trench dig-site,
the Deutscher Soldatenfriedhof, Langemark, Sint-Juliann (the Canadian Forces Memorial)
and Kitcheners Woods. After lunch we will have a brief tour at the Sanctuary Wood Museum and Hill 62 followed by a visit to the In Flanders Fields Museum. Dinner at hotel. Visits to cemeteries of personal interest will be accommodated throughout the tour.  |
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Day #4 – Monday, April 7 – Following breakfast at hotel, we will continue our Battlefields Tour through the now peaceful countryside. Today we will visit Passchendaele, the Passchendaele Museum and Tyne Cot Cemetery. Our afternoon tour of the Ypres rear areas includes Talbot House, an Everyman’s Club founded in 1915 in Poperinghe, “the Hop Town,” and Reningelst, peaceful now, but a bustling base just behind the front line in 1917. Dinner at hotel. |
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Day #5 – Tuesday, April 8 – After breakfast at the hotel, a day trip
to Bruges, Venice of the North, with a guided tour in the morning. Free time in the
afternoon to enjoy the countless treasures of this beautiful city of art with its tiny
medieval streets, gabled houses, splendid churches, cobbled streets, horse-drawn carriages
and canals. Return to Ypres for dinner at the hotel. |
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Day #6 – Wednesday, April 9 – Check out of our hotel after breakfast
and head out to explore the battlefields of Vimy Ridge, including a tour of Vimy Memorial
Park with its fascinating tunnels. Today we visit Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, site of the
largest French National Cemetery, Cabaret Rouge and other cemeteries of personal
interest. We will tour the Newfoundland site of Beaumont Hamel, one of the few
places where a Great War battlefield remains undisturbed. Near there, we’ll see
the Ulster Memorial. On our way to Courcelette, we will stop at the Thiepval memorial,
the British national monument, and Ulster Tower, the Irish Memorial. Check in to our hotel in Amiens. 2 nights) The lovely city of Amiens is home to the majestic Cathedral of Notre Dame, miraculously saved during the war. Its old town quarter, Saint-Leu, became known as the Little Venice of the North because of its canal system. Its network of islets, known as the Hortillonnages, dates from Roman times. Dinner on your own. |
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Day #7 – Thursday, April 10 – After
breakfast, we begin our day’s travel with a visit to Moreuil Wood, followed by a visit
to nearby Rifle Wood. In the afternoon, we move east to Villers-Bretonneaux,
the Australian memorial that is their counterpart to our Vimy memorial and where,
on Anzac Day, so many Australians gather each year for a memorial ceremony. From
there, we go to Canal du Nord, which today is a busy waterway, but on September 27,
1918 was a scene of fierce fighting as Canadian troops were chosen to spearhead
the attack on the forces holding the canal in the most sophisticated and daring
operation of the war. A visit to Bourlon Wood and a tour of the battlesites of 1918
with special emphasis on the part played by Canadian forces in the last 100 days
will complete our day’s touring. Return to our hotel in Amiens with free time
before dinner on your own.
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Day #8 – Friday, April 11 – Following breakfast
at the hotel, we will check out and depart Amiens for Dieppe. On the way, we will visit
the Dieppe Landing sites and the Canadian cemetery. After lunch in Dieppe, France’s oldest
seaside resort, we will continue our exploration of this fascinating area. Tonight we
stay at the Aquado Hotel. (1 night) Dinner on your own. |
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| Day #9 – Saturday, April 12 – Following
breakfast at the hotel, we check out and depart Dieppe for Courseulles, with stops enroute.
Honfleur, an important fishing and commercial port for several centuries, is the port
Champlain set out from on his voyage to Quebec in 1608. We will also visit British
and Canadian Airborne landings at Varaville and Pegasus bridge. After lunch, tour the
Canadian beaches, St. Aubin, Bernieres and Courseulles. The Canadian 3rd Division landed
at Juno Beach on 6th June 1944, and then fought their way inland. Check into the hotel in Courseulles-Sur Mer, a seaside resort located in the midst of the Canadian assault on the Beaches of Normandy on D-Day. Later today, we visit Beny-sur-mer Cemetery, where the men who fell on the beaches and in the bitter bridgehead battles are buried. The cemetery contains 2,049 headstones enclosed by pines and maples. Accommodation and dinner at La Cremaillere/Le Gytan. (our hotel for four nights) |
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Day #10 – Sunday, April 13 – Following breakfast at the hotel we begin our tour today with a visit to Longues-sur-Mer battery. Built in the first few months of 1944, the naval battery at Longues was equipped by the Germans with four 150-mm guns, housed in casemates, and a range-finding post embedded in the cliff face. Next, a visit to the D-Day Landing Museum in Arromanches, the bluffs and surrounding area. Free time for lunch, followed by a tour of the American sites, Pointe-du-Hoc, Omaha Beach and the American Cemetery. Return to the hotel for dinner. | ||
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| Day #11 – Monday, April 14 – After breakfast at the
hotel we head off to visit the lovely old city of Bayeux, including a visit to the Bayeux
Tapestry museum. The Bayeux Tapestry, an extraordinary masterpiece, is an embroidery
that is roughly 20 inches tall and 230 feet long. It tells the story of the events
leading up to and including the Battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066. Free time for lunch, followed by a visit to the new Juno Beach Center. The museum at the Juno Beach Centre includes a simulated approach to the D-Day beaches by landing craft, and displays on the theatres of operations and the events of the Second World War in Canada and overseas. Dinner at the hotel.
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Day #12 – Tuesday, April 15 – Following breakfast at the hotel, we tour the operations south of Courseulles, Carpiquet airport and south of Caen. We will look at the ground of Operation Windsor (the attack of Carpiquet Airport), Operation Atlantic, Operation Spring and Operation Totalize, one of the most innovative breakthrough operations of the war. The latter were the advances beyond the city of Caen. We also visit Verrieres Ridge, where 1820 Canadians lost their lives. A visit to Bretteville-sur-Laize Cemetery at Cintheaux, one of the major Canadian military cemeteries in Normandy will be followed by free time for lunch. This afternoon, we visit the Caen Memorial Museum, born out of the desire to create a place for reflecting on wars on the basis of the experience of the memorable events that took place in Caen and the region during the summer of 1944. Dinner at the hotel. |
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| Day #13 – Wednesday, April 16 – After
breakfast at the hotel and check out, we travel to Vernon, exploring points of historical
interest to the Canadian Army in its drive to close the Falaise Gap, with stops to places
of interest enroute, including Trun, St. Lambert-sur-Dives, Chambois, Mont Ormel
and Vimoutieres. Accommodation in Vernon at the Hotel Normandy. (2 nights) Dinner on your
own.
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Day#14 – Thursday, April 17 – Following
breakfast at the hotel we tour Monet’s Giverny. The country house in which Claude Monet
lived and painted for over 40 years has been restored as a museum. It is surrounded by the
gardens he designed as his private painting environment. The water garden, complete with
a Japanese foot bridge, weeping willows and his famous lily pond is itself an expression
of Monet’s art. Free time to explore this charming village, home of the Musée d’Art Americain and the very old, very small church where Monet is buried. Return to Vernon for our farewell dinner. Overnight at hotel. |
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Day #15 – Friday, April 18 – After breakfast at the hotel, check out and prepare for our drive to Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris for the return flight home. Tour Escort and Guide Marilyn Minnes is a former high school teacher who, while teaching for DND in Germany, took many opportunities to tour Canadian memorial sites. During these visits Marilyn felt a need to play a continuing role in recognizing and remembering the sheer bravery, determination and sacrifices of her fellow Canadians, some who returned home as well as those buried on foreign soil. We will also have the services of an experienced military historian throughout the trip. Please note that the itinerary may be subject to minor changes - if it is necessary to change hotels the same standard will be maintained. |
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For more details on this tour or to request a brochure, please contact us at 613-236-5555 or email Jean Sheikh at jsheikh@executive-trvl.com. |
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