Tour Details

Explore World War I battlefields during a full day in Flanders. We leave Bruges and make a first stop at the German military cemetery of Vladslo where Kathe Kollwitz's sculpture "The Grieving Parents" is a silent roar against war. From there we drive to the small town of Diksmuide. There we visit the "Trench of Death", a Belgian fortified position along the river Yser. We also have a view on the "Peace Gate" and the Ysertower. On our drive to Ypres we make a short photostop at the Canadian memorial of the Brooding Soldier in St.Julian, remembering the courageous Canadian resistance during the German gas attacks in April 1915. Upon arrival in Ypres we will first enjoy a ploughman's lunch in a fine restaurant and afterwards we visit the In Flanders Fields Museum situated in the magnificently rebuilt cloth hall. Our next visit is to Essex Farm Cemetery where the Canadian officer John Mc Crae wrote his world famous poem "In Flanders Fields" and where he was active in 1915 as a surgeon. From there we drive to Tyne Cot cemetery, the largest Commonwealth cemetery in the world, where nearly 12.000 soldiers lay at rest. A short drive will bring us back to Ypres where we first visit the impressing Menin Gate, a memorial to the missing. Free time for dinner. At 8 pm we attend the moving Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate and immediately afterwards we board the coach for the drive back to Bruges.