Your Holiday Itinerary

5-Day Break

• Day 1 – We arrive in Ypres and stay for four nights.
• Day 2 – Third Battle of Ypres (included). Walk 1: We start at two small battlefield cemeteries, following a route to the front line area around ‘Track X’. We follow war poet Edmund Blunden and Buffs Road. Our walk ends at Kitchener’s Wood, where we examine the Canadian defence of Ypres in 1915. Walk 2: Near the village of Wieltje, our route takes us past German bunkers to the private memorial of a Welsh officer and the site where Noel Chavasse would win a posthumous bar to his VC. We then follow the Steenbeek river into St. Julien to the Dressing Station cemetery. B
• Day 3 – Mines and Trenches (included). Walk 3: We see the huge Spanbroekmolen crater, followed by others nearby at Peckham and Maedelstede Farm. Near ‘Whitesheet’ we look at the attack of the two Irish Divisions and end at ‘Croonaert Wood’, an area of preserved German trenches where Adolf Hitler fought in 1914/15. Walk 4: We discover ‘Plugstreet Wood’, and see all the small battlefield cemeteries in and around the wood, then walk through the scene of Christmas Truce. Our walk ends close to the scene of further mining operations and the location of one mine which exploded in 1955! B
• Day 4 – Menin Road (included) Walk 5: Starting at Potijze, we see the British and French graves, then follow the front line to the Frezenberg Ridge. At Railway Wood, we look at the tunnellers, seeing craters, plus the unique RE Grave and memorial to the Liverpool Scottish. Going past the site of Y Wood, we end at Birr Cross Roads Cemetery, seeing the grave of Captain Ackroyd VC of the RAMC. Behind the Lines (optional), by coach, takes in Talbot House, an oasis for troops out of the line, in the nearby town of Poperinghe.B
• Day 5 – We travel to Calais, then home. B

B=Breakfast