DESTINATIONS BATTLEFIELDS ESCORTED TOURING
introduced measures to make its itineraries more accessible to all sorts of traveller. There’s a dedicated tour for solo travellers, with passengers enjoying sole occupancy of their room with no single supplement. (It’s worth noting that solo specialist Just You also offers a First World War battlefields option.) And for families who want to help the national curriculum come alive, there’s a young adults discount on popular introductory tours. Children between eight and 17 get 50% off selected tours in the school holidays, when travelling with an adult. Leger is also offering a range
of tours travelling in November for those who wish to be in the region for the exact date of the Armistice. The Somme Advance to Victory Centenary Tour traces the last 100 days of the war, from the Battle of Amiens, where the Allies broke the German defences, to the end in Mons, where the last shots were fired. The five-day tour starts from £399. Shearings Holidays, which partners with the Guild of Battlefield Guides to ensure the expertise of its tour leaders, and donates money to ABF The
The centenary of the end of the conflict has signalled a surge in popularity for these trips
Soldiers’ Charity for every tour sold, has created a tour for this year that includes the chance to see a performance of the play Journey’s End in an old ammunition store near Ypres. The drama was written 90 years ago by R C Sherriff, a soldier injured at Passchendaele, and portrays the lives of those who fought and died on the Western Front. Departing on October 14, the five-day tour starts from £319. Also new to the operator’s
portfolio this year is an itinerary celebrating 100 years since the founding of the Royal Air Force.
The five-day RAF Centenary Tour, from £249, travels to aviation heritage sites in the East Midlands, and covers the history of the organisation from its founding during the First World War up to the present day. Another new leftfield option
comes from Back-Roads Touring, which offers a canal barging itinerary in France’s Champagne region with a Great War theme.
w SECOND WORLD WAR In addition to the First World War centenary, 2018 marks a significant Second World War anniversary. It is 75 years since Operation Chastise, when a British RAF squadron – better known by its nickname, ‘the Dam Busters’ – used specially- created ‘bouncing bombs’ to destroy dams in the Ruhr Valley. Leger has launched a seven-day Dambuster’s 75th Anniversary Tour, which takes an in-depth look at the iconic military operation, travelling from the Derwent Dam in the Peak District to the Rheinberg War Cemetery in Germany, and to the dams themselves, from £599. And although the 75th
TOP: The Imperial War Museum in London
LEFT: Poppies in northern France
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travelweekly.co.uk 1 March 2018
anniversary of the iconic D-Day Landings isn’t until next year, interest in the Second World War generally is already at a high. Back-Roads Touring has a new nine-day Battle of Britain tour, visiting associated sights around the UK, from £2,799. Experiences include a flight over Cambridge
in one of the few fully restored Dragon Rapide aircraft still existing in the country, and the chance to sit in a Spitfire. For clients who want to
combine their military history in one big hit, suggest Trafalgar’s WWI and WWII Battlefields tour, a 12-day trip that starts from £2,395. Beginning at London’s Imperial War Museum, it moves on to northern France and the Netherlands to include both First World War battlefields and sites central to the Second World War, including the D-Day Landings beaches and Dunkirk.
Or try...
While anniversary celebrations mean that the focus for 2018 is very much on the First – and somewhat on the Second – World Wars, the 20th century by no means invented conflict in Europe. So for clients who prefer their history a little more ancient, suggest Great Rail Journeys’ new The Plantagenets in France itinerary. Tracing the conflicts of one of the most notorious – and bellicose – British royal houses, the trip packs the history of the Hundred Years War, including visits to the battlefields of Agincourt, Crecy and Poitiers, into a five-day tour, from £895.
PICTURES: ANDREWTUNNARD; SHEARINGS; LEGER HOLIDAYS; BACK-ROADS TOURING
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