Depart from your chosen UK pick-up point and travel to the port where a coach interchange will take place, you will then join your tour coach for the Channel crossing. On arrival on the Continent we continue to our hotel (passengers joining the tour in Europe will meet the group at the hotel this evening).

We start with the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815. Beginning at the new Waterloo Memorial Museum we look at the defeat of Napoleon by Wellington and Blücher. You also have time to climb the Lion Mound and see the stunning Waterloo panorama. After lunch in Waterloo we travel the ninety-nine years from Waterloo to Mons and look at the opening shots of WWI. At Nimy Bridge we see where the first Victoria Crosses were awarded for bravery in 1914 and then see the new Mons War Museum. At St. Symphorien we see a unique and moving cemetery where the dead of both sides are buried and in the British plots this includes the ‘first and the last’ casualties of the Great War.

*Breakfast Included

Today we travel to Flanders and look at the four years of conflict around Ypres between 1914 and 1918. At Tyne Cot Cemetery we visit the largest British and Commonwealth cemetery from either world war, and examine the battles for Ypres. At the newly renovated Sanctuary Wood Trench Museum we see a system of preserved WWI trenches and then have lunch at Hooge, together with time to visit the museum. In the grounds of the Hooge Chateau we visit some mine craters from 1916 and then travel down the Messines Ridge to see the visitors’ centre before seeing the Memorial to the Missing at Ploegsteert. We end the day by travelling into Ypres for free time to explore before we attend the moving Last Post Ceremony which is held at 8pm every evening.

*Breakfast Included

Moving on to the Second World War we look at the liberation of Belgium in September 1944. At the For Freedom Museum in Knocke-Heist, we see an amazing collection of life-size dioramas depicting the fighting in this region. We then travel into the Breskens Pocket to see where the Canadians landed on the coast. After lunch we look at the battle for the Walcheren Island in November 1944 when commandos landed on the coast and the Canadians attacked from Antwerp. We see the Sherman tank memorial overlooking the landing beaches and also visit the war graves in Bergen op Zoom.

*Breakfast Included

We depart the hotel after breakfast and travel to the Channel port. You will leave your tour coach behind as you join your transfer vehicle for your return journey to your original departure point.

*Breakfast Included