Great War Battlefields: Ypres, Passchendaele and the Somme

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What you can expect

A fascinating tour exploring the battlefields of World War One. Varying daily mileage with some longer days, plenty of history and poignancy. A century on it is still humbling to see the places where such sacrifice took place in such terrible conditions. With plenty of stops to see the sites, and a benign terrain, this tour is within the great majority of cyclists. 5 days' cycling; 6 nights: 4 nights’ half board, 2 nights dinner not included; luggage transport, full back-up and assistance throughout the day.

More detail

Highlights include:

Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate
Ypres Salient
Battle of Passchendaele
Tyne Cot cemetery
Hill 60
Messines Ridge
Site of the Christmas Truce football match
Fromelles
Vimy Ridge
Pal Battalions Memorials
Newfoundland Memorial Park
Memorial to the Missing of the Somme at Thiepval
Lochnagar Crater
Delville Wood
Welsh Memorial at Mametz
Cambrai tank battle 1917

We can tailor our itinerary according to your wishes or any personal connections you may have. We can also focus on particular nations - for example, we have had South African, New Zealand and Canadian customers for whom we have included in the tour places of special interest to them, whilst at the same time showing the places of global significance. The Western Front is a huge subject and we are keen to share it with you in a way that brings it alive for you. Below is our standard itinerary.

You may also be interested in our Somme Weekend Tour, Passchendaele and Ypres Salient Tour and D-Day and Normandy Tour.

Transfers start: Lille.

Transfers finish: Cambrai

or enquire about specific dates by clicking 'Booking Enquiry' below.

Testimonial:

'Charlie, we had a fantastic time on our WW I battlefield tour thanks to you and Shane. The itinerary and hotels were absolutely superb and we met some lovely people on the tour. You also provided some great weather!

We also liked the input by Andy Robertshaw ( WW I historian) and it was great to have him along for three days. The cycles you provided were spot on, so much so we have gone out today and replaced our own cycles with Trek bikes. We cannot praise your company and the tour enough and I would recommend it to anyone.'

I wanted to let you know that the Great War tour was simply fantastic. It was everything I had hoped for and more. All the best, CG, Fairfax, California, USA

Your Next Adventure Awaits

What you need to know...

Start Location
Ypres (Belgium)

Finish Location
Cambrai

Country/Region
Battlefields by Bike

Grading
Moderate

Shortest Day
45 km / 28 miles

Longest Day
91 km / 58 miles

Total Days
7 Days

Total Miles
340 km / 212 miles

Departure Dates & Prices

There are no available dates at this moment.
Please choose an alternative Tour or check back soon.

Itinerary

Day 1

Arrive Lille and transfer to Ypres to our comfortable hotel in good time to attend the Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate – a tribute to the dead and missing of the Ypres Salient that has been enacted every day since 1928 except during the German occupation (and then it was re-instigated even as the Germans were retreating from the other end of the town in 1944).

Day 2

The Menin Gate bears the names of some 55,000 soldiers with no known grave. In fact, it was not large enough to inscribe all the names of the missing and another 35,000 were recorded at Tyne Cot, one of the largest cemeteries of the First World War. In addition to these names are 12,000 graves. This remarkable and sobering place is located at the heart of what was the hell of Passchendaele of late 1917.

Our route today is a leisurely one as there are so many things to see. The Belgians have an excellent network of cycle lanes and quiet roads and we benefit from these to ride in a large loop north and east of the city. First stop is Essex Farm, another cemetery famous as the place where John MacRae wrote the poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ which eloquently established the poppy flower as the symbol of remembrance whilst he was working at the aid post there as a surgeon. The aid post has been reconstructed and you can see the conditions in which he operated. We then pass the point where the Germans carried out the first gas attack in the second battle of Ypres in 1915.

We also pass the Langemark cemetery where 44,000 German soldiers are buried, many dying during the 1914 attack when the allies held their position and the salient was established. From here it is on to Tyne Cot, then passing the memorial to the tunnelling companies along a quiet back road, to Hill 60. (41 km / 26 miles).

Day 3

Yesterday we covered the northern salient and today we set off from Ypres en route to our next overnight stop near the Vimy Memorial. On the way, we visit some of the key points in the southern salient including the mine craters of the Messines Ridge. 4 Victoria Crosses were awarded on 7 June 1917 during the attack on Messines, and the prelude to this battle was the detonation of 19 huge mines in sequence, with the blasts reputedly heard in London. The ridge was tactically important as it held the high ground on the southern arc of the Ypres salient, and the battle was strategically important as it diverted German troops from the Battle of Arras. British and Commonwealth troops, notably Anzacs, achieved their objectives that day by advancing behind a creeping artillery barrage. We visit the New Zealand Memorial at Messines; in it are two German bunkers from which is a fine place to appreciate the battlefield.

We skirt ‘Plug Street’, as the Tommies called Ploegsteert, seeing the site of one of the Christmas Truces of 1914, and south of Armentieres visit Fromelles, scene of yet more bitter fighting by the Australians then pass the rows of pillboxes which remain on Aubers Ridge. En route to our overnight stop in Arras we visit the incredible spectacle of the Canadian Memorial at Vimy Ridge with its lunar landscape of craters all around. The monument itself is awe inspiring and humbling. The memorial park contains sections of trench and tunnels (which it is possible to visit) and a small museum and is a ‘must-see’. (91 km / 58 miles).

Day 4

South from Arras we enter the area which more than any other battle is talismatic of the sacrifices made in the Great War as it saw the largest single day loss in the history of the British Army. We ride through Gommecourt and then Serre, with its haunting cemeteries and the memorials to the Pals Battalions. We pass the venues of many more fierce battles before arriving at pretty Beaumont Hamel and continuing past the Hawthorn Ridge mine crater (the explosion of this is often shown in documentary films), Auchonvillers and then the Newfoundland Memorial Park, where the Newfoundland Regiment was all but wiped out with all of its officers and 90% of its men killed or wounded on 1 July 1916. We progress to see the memorial at Thiepval, which together with the Menin Gate, is perhaps the most important of the Great War. Views of the open landscape are seen through the soaring arches where the names of 75,000 missing are carved, giving a real appreciation of the terrain so fiercely fought for. (55km / 34 miles).

Day 5

The area to east of the Albert - Bapaume road experienced more success on the opening days of the battle and we can see how advances were made in the days and weeks following.

Starting with the Lochnager mine crater at La Biosselle, we pass Fricourt, Mametz, High Wood and Delville Wood at Longueval, all of these areas experiencing bitter hand-to-hand fighting and a far cry from their rural tranquillity today. From here we head north past the scene of the first tank engagement in September 1916 to the Butte de Warlancourt, and on to Bapaume for the night. (35 miles / 56 km).

Day 6

We start by heading east into the area of the Cambrai tank battle of 1917 which aimed to break the famous Hindenburg Line, before swinging south to areas fought over at the conclusion of the war such as the St Quentin canal and places connected to Wilfred Owen. Turning north we go full circle and skirt the battlefield at Le Cateau, famous for the stand of Smith-Dorrien's II Corps in 1914 during the retreat from Mons before arriving in Cambrai for our last night. (93km / 58 miles).

Day 7

Departure.

Some Tour Photos...

Great War Battlefields: Ypres, Passchendaele and the Somme

The Menin Gate before the nightly ceremony to the fallen where the last post has been played every evening for eighty years with the exception of the occupation in WWII