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Canadian War Sites Tour Belgium and France Autumn Tour, October 4 - 18, 2009 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 – Sunday, October 4 – Depart Canada from Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto for the flight to Paris. Day #2 – Monday, October 5 – Arrive Charles De Gaulle, Paris. Our vans will transfer us 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 – Tuesday, October 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. We will have lunch and a brief tour at Hooge Crater museum 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 – Wednesday, October 7– Following breakfast at hotel, we will continue our Battlefields Tour through the now peaceful countryside. Today we will visit Hill 60, Hill 62/ Sanctuary Wood, Passchendaele and Tyne Cot Cemetery with free time for lunch. 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 – Thursday, October 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 – Friday, October 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 Pozieres Cemetery, located
in an area which saw heavy Australian casualties. 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 – Saturday, October 10 – Market
morning in Amiens. 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. Then we go 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. Return to our hotel in Amiens with free time before dinner on your own. 
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Day #8 – Sunday, October 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 – Monday, October 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 – Tuesday, October 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 – Wednesday, October 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 – Thursday, October 15 – Following breakfast at the hotel, we tour the operations south of Courseulles, Carpiquet airport and south of Caen. We then 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 – Friday, October 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 – Saturday, October 17 – Market
day in Vernon. 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 – Sunday, October 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 of whom returned home, others who lie at rest 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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