Ypres & The Last Post Ceremony

Depart from your chosen pick-up point and head to Dover or Folkestone for your crossing. Our first stop is Lijssenthoek CWGC Cemetery, site of a casualty clearing station and now a military cemetery. From here you make your way to Essex Farm Military Cemetery, the site of a dressing station, and pay our respects to Private Strudwick (age 15) and Private Barrett (a Victoria Cross winner). It was close to here that John McCrae wrote the now famous ‘In Flanders Fields’. At Polygon Wood you will be told what happened to Britain’s small but capable regular army in 1914, and to British and Commonwealth soldiers later in the war. Heading into Ypres, there is free time to explore the town and shop for delicious Belgian chocolates, before attending the Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate.

The first stop this morning is Hill 60, the site of intense and frequent fighting during the Great War and is still showing many battle scars. Next, onto pay a visit to Hooge Crater Museum, located in a former chapel and the adjacent trench reconstruction. Travelling to Langemark German Cemetery which is one of the few German military cemeteries in Belgium, where you will learn of the student soldiers who died nearby in 1914 and of the Langemark myth to which the cemetery has given rise. The final visit today is to Tyne Cot CWGC Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing, which the largest CWGC Cemetery in the world.