Tours By Tony - Armistice Day & Tour
Armistice Day & Tour
11 Nov 2018 is the centenary of the Armistice which signalled the end of the Great War, the war to end all wars.
What better place to be on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11 month, one hundred years to the minute since the guns fell silent on the Western Front, than the New Zealand memorial at Tyne Cot, where our dead from the Third Battle of Ypres, known to us as Passchendaele are buried, and our missing are remembered. To finish what will be a very moving day, at 8pm we will be at the Menin Gate in Ypres for the Last Post, a ceremony which has taken place every night since 1928.
I'm sure I'm not alone in wanting to mark such an important event in world and New Zealand history so here's my basic plan...
We'll fly into Paris and spend three nights to get over the flight, adjust to the local time zone, and of course enjoy the sights of this stunning city.
Then we start our WWI pilgrimage at the Marne, where it all started back in 1914, at the stunning Musee de la Grande Guerre at Meaux. This new museum is a destination all in itself, and tells the tale of the war from a French perspective, starting from the end of the Franco-Prussian War From here we head to the Somme for a tour of the battlefields and memorials of New Zealand significance, including the unique, newly opened museum in the tunnels under the cathedral at Albert.
In Arras we will visit the Wellington Quarry, an underground city excavated by the New Zealand tunnellers, then make our way to the town of Le Quesnoy, the rather quirky walled town which was liberated without damage by the New Zealand regiment in late 1918. All things Kiwi are celebrated in a town which boasts a rue des All Blacks.
From here we head to Belgium and the fields of Flanders, where New Zealand suffered more casualties in one day than the whole of WWII. We will stay near Ypres and I can guarantee a very moving day as we will tour the battlefields of Messines, Polygon Wood and Passchendaele.
At the conclusion of the tour we will return to Paris to fly home, or to travel elsewhere in Europe for those who want to.
Like all our tours it will be a small group, with a maximum of eight people, so it has the flexibility which just cannot be found with any other tour operator. If you have a family member who was involved in the fighting on the Western front, we will endeavour to incorporate this into the tour where possible - I certainly will be wanting to visit the grave of my Great Great Uncle, who was killed at the Somme in 1918 and is buried in the Euston Road CWG (Commonwealth War Graves) Cemetery, near Colincamps.
For more information, or to register your interest, e-mail me at tony@tonystours.nz or give me a call on 021 662 441
