Europe & Mediterranean WHAT’S ON AT WTM
Israel Government Tourist Office (EM650) Have the beach-body of your dreams by visiting the IGTO stand where you can pose against a Dead Sea backdrop. Also hear details of new attractions and hotel openings.
Cyprus Tourism Organisation (EM1100) One of Cyprus’s most renowned sommeliers, Pambos Papadopoulos will be conducting wine tastings on-stand today from 10am-6pm. Also hear about the island’s new dive sites and cycle route.
Belleair Holidays (EM1150) Malta specialist Belleair Holidays will be talking about its new renewal of vows programme for 2014, and also announcing new hotel product.
Lithuania State Department of Tourism (EM570) Tourism Ambassador and chart- topping accordionist Martynas Levickis, who won Lithuania’s Got Talent, will be serenading visitors on Lithuania’s stand.
German National Tourist Office (EM450) Agents can learn more about the GNTO’s new Accessible Travel programme in a training session on-stand on Thursday at 2pm. Germany is also promoting the 300 year anniversary of UK-German royalty, faith tours and CPE Bach’s music.
Visit Greece (EM1000) Agents attending WTM on Wednesday and Thursday can take part in “Passport to Greece” from 2-3.30pm both days, collecting stamps from various Greek exhibitors for the chance to win prizes. Drop in at 12.30pm for a cooking demonstration and 1.30pm to taste the results.
Bmi regional (EM1200) Sharing a stand with Visit Flanders, bmi regional will be giving away three pairs of flights anywhere on its network to WTM delegates. Enter the draw by dropping in a business card at any time. Winners are drawn Thursday.
Turkish Culture and Tourism Office (EM850) Turkey will be focusing on cultural travel, including archaeology and its new Unesco sites, as well as continuing to promote its Blue Flag beaches and marinas and spas.
44 06.11.2013 Commemorative packets of poppy seeds will be handed out at WTM
To Flanders fields I
t’s not often you’ll find a poem on the back of a packet of seeds, as you can pick up at WTM today. But these are poppy seeds, and in Britain the poppy
has become a symbol for remembering the dead of all wars. Poppies covered the fields of Flanders, the Flemish part of Belgium, during some of the worst battles of the First World War, also known as the Great War. The centenary runs from 2014 until 2018 when this poem – In Flanders Fields by the Canadian soldier John McCrae – will once again become famous. As I visit these same fields in the sunny September of 2013, it is hard to imagine at first that one of the worst wars in history raged here. About 600,000 died in Belgium alone, mainly in three major battles around the town of Ypres (Ieper in the Flemish language) where British and Commonwealth forces confronted the invading Germans. Ypres today is a small, peaceful town dominated by its medieval Cloth Hall and cathedral, with plenty of bars and restaurants around the market square. But everything you see here is a reconstruction, as the town was totally destroyed during the war and rebuilding was not completed until the 1960s. First stop on a tour of the battlefields is usually In Flanders Fields Museum, situated in the Cloth Hall. Interactive technology
FLANDERS SITES TO VISIT
brings to life the stories of soldiers and nurses, who speak to you with the faces and voices of actors. It’s very moving, and I leave knowing that
all wars are futile. A short walk brings me to Menin Gate, also reconstructed, where the Last Post ceremony held every night at 8pm is part of most tours. This is a sombre ceremony with sombre
music, a recitation from another poem and the laying of wreaths. Today an English school and a Scottish pipe band take part,
Next year marks the centennial of the Great War and the launch of a four-year period of commemorative events and exhibitions. Dave Richardson visits the battlefields of Flanders to find out what visitors can expect
but my attention keeps wandering to the list of more than 54,000 names engraved into the walls of soldiers who died around here and whose bodies have never been found. The scale of the slaughter is almost unimaginable. The next day I make my first visit to a British and Commonwealth cemetery. Lijssenthoek is the site of a casualty clearing station on the Western Front that processed 300,000 of the wounded, and here there are 10,784 gravestones.
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