Where is the best place to visit on a DIY WW1 battlefield tour.
Have the opportunity to spend a weekend and take the kids on a little bit of an augmentation of their School history. Something I have always wanted to do also. Would like to be able to let them see some trenches and also a war cemetery. A museum of some sorts would be good too.
What would you suggest?
i remember riding through Le Harve and seeing a cemetery full of white crosses.
and more recently i visited a commonwealth site in the depths of Bavaria. again, lots of white tombstones bearing the names of airmen that dies. many were only 18.
quite choking, TBH. and hmbling.
Simply because it's the largest, and thus makes the "impact", Tyne Cott?
There's a museum at Zonnebeke, a couple of miles to the s/w.
From there, much of the WWI battlefields are closeby. Arras with the arch and eternal flame are easily found. Also probably easy to find somewhere to feed the kids here.
The large German one, just to show they are indeed humans, and fellow europeans is not that far at langemarck.
The Commonwealth Graves Commission has teaching resources.
http://www.cwgc.org/content.asp?menuid=4&id=4&menuname=Learning%20Zone&menu=main
Ypres - last post each night
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/holiday_type/history_and_travel/article5098988.ece - somme trenches museum
vimy ridge - massive monument -
have a look here: - http://www.adaptabletravel.co.uk/tour.php?id=229
I'd have thought one one the excavated trenches at Flanders but couldn't say where as I have no idea - but it is something I want to do myself.
Thanks, Tyne Cott was the graveyard that initially came to mind. There seems to be a museum at Passchendale that ticks the boxes for background and reconstructions of trenches and dugouts.
I went to hill 60, that has a museum across the road, hill 62 (Sanctuary Wood), also has a museum and trenches etc. Went to Ypres(Ieper) and the Menin Gate Memorial. There is loads of stuff over there, there was even shells piled up on the edges of fields.
http://www.ww1battlefields.co.uk/flanders/sanctuary_wood.html
http://www.ww1battlefields.co.uk/flanders/hill60.html
http://www.ww1battlefields.co.uk/flanders/ypres.html
http://www.ww1battlefields.co.uk/flanders/hooge.html
I thought it said - Best Firs World place to visit - I was going to suggest Milton Keynes
Thiepval memorial is very sobering and in the Arras area.
http://www.ww1battlefields.co.uk/somme/thiepval.html
Vimy Ridge has some of the trenches reconstructed and also guided tours of the underground tunnel network.
Tyne Cott of course although it is not worth spending much time in the new visitors centre. It may be difficult with a large group though as you really need to be quiet to take it all in.
Sanctuary Wood is a bit run down and possibly not worth the cost for a large group but it has a most astonishing set of 3d photographs that really capture the bleakness of the whole scene. Massive areas without a tree standing because of the shelling, animals and people almost completely submerged in the mud.
Arras is a good base and interesting stuff on the underground mining they did.
Somewhere near there there is a whopping great big hole caused by an underground explosion.
Just seeing miles & miles of graves though is so humbling. Its frightening what us humans can do and does bring it home.
Stick em' in front of t'telly and put Black Adder Goes Forth on..
Failing that just drive down the Beaches of Normandy and turn left a bit inland, there are still masses of trenches that are overgrown and in open farmland.. I think you need scale, I think you need perspective, something large (like the cemeteries at Tyne Cott etc.) Make it huge, not small perfect snippets (and visitor centers) of one of Mans most incredulous acts.
Tyne Cott- and stay in Brugges as its not far away and a really relaxing/great place.
I'm man enough to say that when I heard the monotone reading of the names of the soldiers buried at Tyne Cott being read out on the speaker I struggled to stop myself from crying. Another shock was the realisation that I was in a cemetery of young men.
I have one regret- not visiting the German cemetery to pay my respects which I will do on my next visit.
Also worth visiting one of the many smaller cemeteries, of which there are many, they are usually empty of visitors and consequently quiet, very quiet...
Like this one:
http://www.ww1cemeteries.com/ww1frenchcemeteries/beaumonthamel.htm
Beaumont Hamal visitors centre was very interesting. Any of the Canadian or Newfoundlander sites are good (for want of a better word). Vimy ridge, Thiepval, Arras. That whole area was really interesting.
Agreed about the age of the men in the cemeteries. The vast majority of them were significantly younger then me.
I would say Ypres. When I worked for the army, we used to send new recruits to Ypres via the imperial war museum, as part of a module called "Realities Of War". I think it forms a part of the Phase 1 training.
The museum in Kobarid (Slovenia) is interesting as it depicts the events on the Italian/Austrian front which for obvious reasons isn't something generally taught in England. If you walk up some of the hills around Tolmin (or elsewhere aound the Soca valley) you can still find WW1 rifle clips.
We visited the museum at Passchendale and Tyne Cot cemetery when we passed through on the way back from Bruges. Both very good.
le Vieil Armand (Hartmannswillerkopf), up above Cernay in the Vosges. A memorial but also the trenches, shelters and fortifications have been left as they were at the end of the war.
Went to the trenches and museum near Munster in Alsace. You could see both sides trenches facing each other, which was interesting. You could easily spot the German ones as they had the towels laid out in them.
If you want a proper field visit (with artifacts readily to be found):
Hurtgen forest.
Or for sheer sadness:
Seelow heights
Hurtgen forest is WW2 I think
The museum Of the great war in Peronne is extremely good and perhaps gives the best account of how and why it all happened. It is entirely neutral and gives equal space to the French, German and British. The audio guide is excellent. I'd visit here (which could easily fill a day) then supplement the trip with trips to some of the battlefields around the area. There's also a couple of good bars and hotels so is a good base from which to explore. There's also a decent clampsite virtually in the town/village centre.
http://www.greatwar.co.uk/somme/museum-historial-peronne.htm
The little museum at Albert is good and is very close to the Lochnagar crater (miners dug under the German trenches, deposited loads of explosives and set it off on 1st day of battle).
Vimy Ridge is excellent - the trenches here were simply left as they were on the last day of the war, and gives a striking picture of just how close the opposing sides were (I'd assumed that 'No Mans Land' was a vast swathe of ground that separated the lines, but on occasions was merely a few feet across!).
Thanks guys. Looking to do a day trip from our base in southern Netherlands. Some good ideas. Thanks.
Probably no good for you, too far away, but Mount Lagazuoi in the Italian Dolomites is really strange - whole place is riddled with trenches, and on account of it being several thousand metres up, and no use for farming, it was all just left. You can see the via ferrata that they used to get stuff up there (there are some easy ones that are fine for your average walker, and some hard ones that are proper climbs that just happen to have a metal wire to clip onto).
Nice surrounding area to visit too, and lots of riding. Probably be a bit of a pain if you don't speak preferably German, or Italian.
Joe
+ 1 to both of what Hobster said. I went to both with my parents when I was mid teens.
Even then it was very moving.
To be honest what is equally moving if not more so is just driving through the region. Every mile or so you come across an immaculate kept cemetery. It then brings it home to you just how many people died.
The battlefields around the town of Verdun are fascinating.
Fort Douaumont is one spooky place...
679- I read an account in the Forgotten War series that counted 1,000 that were walled in/sealed in the casement. Sad all the same though regardless of the true figure 
The semaine fédérale VTT went through the red zone Verdun battlefields last year. Trails used shell craters for berms and trenches for technical sections. It was ace. 26 million shells with 6/m2 and a lot didn't go off. Stay on the trails or risk the fate of a couple of Dutch artefact hunters recently - booom!
The southern half of the province of West Flanders in Belgium is absolutely a must. And with this map, you have already a good and extremely bicycle friendly itinerary (as it's nearly entirely along towpaths of rivers and canals, and on a former railway track). Veurne, Ieper (Ypres), Diksmuide and Nieuwpoort are small and charming towns:
Cycling World War I in West Flanders (Belgium)
And on the picture above, you see some of the signpostings, very popular in Flanders for organizing your DIY bicycle tour. More info:
Or for those of you not able to visit these sites, there's a lot of fascinating stuff nearer home on Cannock Chase (near Birmingham). I'll start a new thread rather than hijacking this one.
None of the palces listed above will look anything like they did 95 years ago. Try the site of the Battle of Jutland if you want to see it how it was then (PITA to get to mind)
I've got to visit some of these places, not sure her indoors will appreciate it though
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