Suggested Itinerary-  4 Nights/5 days    

 

Host family accomodation

 

Great War Rememberance tour

 

 

DAY 1

Arrival in Amiens.  Meet host families at about 18.30 hrs

 

DAY 2

Full day excursion : AMIENS  (08./18.30)

AM  :  Visit of the Notre Dame Cathedral which is the vastest Gothic building in France with a remarkable architecture as well as statuary. Visit with audio-guide and climb of tower to appreciate the beautiful view over the city. 

Visit of Jules Verne’s House (with audio guide).

     

PM  :  Visit of the “floating” gardens ("hortillonages") cultivated since the Middle Ages by market  

gardeners :  boat trip to discover those gardens enclosed by branches of the rivers Somme 

and Avre, which can only be reached by boat.

 

DAY 3

Full day excursion : ARRAS (08.00/18.30)

AM  :  (approx. 10.00 : ) Free discovery of the town, with its two grand

arcaded squares in the

centre (Grand' Place and the smaller place des Héros)with on every side restored seventeenth-

and eighteenth-century mansions and the grandly ornate Town Hall with its Belfry (Climbing up

to the belfry platform).

 

PM : visit of the tunnels(“boves”) used since the Middle Ages beneath

the centre of the city during World War I, the rooms were used as a British barracks and hospital.        

(*) Walk to the Vauban barracks ("Citadelle" – now the regional traffic police HQ) :  there’s a war cemetery and memorial commemorating 35,928 missing soldiers.

 

DAY 4

Full day excursion : The CIRCUIT of REMEMBRANCE  (08.00/18.30) 

Routes of the Battle of the Somme from Péronne to Albert or vice-versa.

09h15 :  visit of the Museum of the Great War in Péronne (a part of the

museum has been inserted into a very imposing fortification which was damaged during the fighting. Here can be found the military or personal reminders of soldiers and can be discovered the daily life of the British, German and French civilians)

Departure to Thiepval (Great Memorial to the Missing which  commemorates the 73367 Bristish and South African men who fell between July 1915 and March 1918. The Ulster Tower is the memorial both to the Irish of the Battle of the Sommeand to all Ulstermen who died in the Great War).

Then stop in La Boisselle to see the Lochnagar Crater (a vast

 and impressive crater in open farm-land, left by a tremendous explosion on 1 July 1916)

And finally stop at Beaumont-Hamel to discover TheNewfoundland Memorial (The well-preserved trench system, the only survival of its kind in the Somme. It has three battlefield cemeteries and monuments to the Highland Division.Visitors can walk the duck-board lined trenches and climb up to the viewing-point, the caribou statue

 

16.00 :  Visit of the Musée Somme 1916 which follows the soldiers into

the trenches of the 1916 offensive.(10 m underground and in a 250 m long tunnel can be found a series of scenes portraying the daily life of the troops.)

 

DAY 5

08h30 :  return trip

 

Our prices include :  

    - 4 night FB accommodation in host families,

    - entry fees (Notre Dame Cathedral, Jules Verne’s House, “floating” gardens in Amiens,belfry & tunnels in Arras, Museum of the Great War & Musée Somme 1916)

    - 1 leader free of charge/10 students (host family accommodation),

    - 1 driver free of charge(host family accommodation),

    -  assistance of our local organizer.

 

Extra night :   one day spent with host family (sunday) 

 

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  Other suggested visits  :

 

(*) Part of an extensive network of tunnels dug in World War I by British empire soldiers can be visited at

the Carrière Wellington museum in the suburbs of the town. 

 

Guided tour of Amiens (English – 1h30) -  tours can be led on “the Great War” theme

 

Guided rememberance tour (in coach) :  2h30  (Departure and return : Albert Museum)  

  3 visited sites :

    Meet at the Museum in Albert and departure to the battles sites.

    1- Lochnagar crater (La Boisselle.)

    2- Franco-british Memorial (Thiepval), and passing in front of the Ulster Tower 

    3- Trenches of the Newfoundland Memorial (Beaumont Hamel)

 

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Other suggested excursions :

 

NAOURS  (half day):

Visit of the underground city.

It  used originally as chalk quarry since the 3rd century, is a real city dug by human hands. In this 300 000

cubic meters area, you will found there 28 galleries (2000 meters long), 300 "chambers", 6 chimneys,

public squares, a chapel... You will see inside fossils and go down until 33 meters depth under the hill.

Thoses "muches", hiding places in Picardie, provided shelter for population during all invasions which took

place in Picardie up to the world war. During the 1st world war they were used by the Allies and occupied by

german army during the second war.

There is a constant temperature of 9.5°C.

 

PARIS :

Full day excursion : 08h30/20h00

 

AM   (from 10.30/11.hrs) : Walk from the Arc de Triomphe down the Champs Elysées to the Louvres Museum

and its pyramid. (If wished, “visit” of the Museum to discover the Mona Lisa)

Lunch in the Tuileries Gardens.

 

PM   (between 14.00 and 15.00) :  Eiffel Tower (2d floor) or Boat trip on the river Seine.

 

Departure after the visit at 16.30hrs ;

stop in Montmartre for a walk around the Sacré Coeur and place du Tertre.

 

EURODISNEY :

Full day excursion : 08h30/20h00