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Canadian War Sites Tour Belgium and France Autumn Tour, October 10 - 24, 2010 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 10 – Depart
Canada from
Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto for the flight to Paris. Day #2 – Monday, October 11 – 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 to 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 12 – 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),
followed by a brief tour at the Sanctuary Wood Museum and Hill 62. After lunch we will visit the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ieper. Dinner at hotel. Visits to cemeteries of personal interest will be accommodated throughout the tour.  |
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Day #4 – Wednesday, October 13 – 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 – Thursday, October 14 – 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 15 – Check out of our hotel after breakfast
and head out to explore the battlefields of Vimy Ridge, including a tour of Vimy Memorial
Park. Today we visit Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, site of the largest French National Cemetery
and Cabaret Rouge Cemetery. On our way to Amiens, we will visit Arras and the newly-opened
Wellington Quarry tunnels. 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 16 – After
breakfast, we will begin our day’s travel with a tour of the Newfoundland site of Beaumont
Hamel, one of the few places where a Great War battlefield remains undisturbed. Near here, we’ll visit the Thiepval memorial, the British national monument, Ulster Tower, the Irish Memorial, and the Courcelette area. 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. We will include 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. If time permits, we will make a stop at 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. Return to our hotel in Amiens with free time before dinner on your own. 
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Day #8 – Sunday, October 17 – 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 18 – 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, we’ll 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 we’ll 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 19 – 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 20 – 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 21 – 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 – Friday, October 22 – 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 23 – 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 24 – 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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