Tour 8 – One day tour of Arras, Vimy Ridge,and the Artois region

• The CWGC Experience

This is a unique interpretative centre which highlights the remarkable work undertaken by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in the remembrance of the war dead.

It was awarded the Best Tourism Project in Europe at the 2019 British Guild of Travel Writers’ International Tourism Awards.

• The Wellington Tunnels in Arras

Twenty metres below ground is a town within a town. Visit the impressive preserved Wellington system of tunnels underneath the city of Arras where at it’s peak over 24,000 soldiers were housed in the warren of chalk passageways.

• Faubourg d’Amiens cemetery, the Arras Memorial to the missing and the Arras Flying Services Memorial

In March 1916 the British Army moved into this sector of the Western Front and started to bury their war dead here along with the Dominion forces until the end of the war. The original French burials from 1914 were removed at the end of the war. Over 2,600 are buried here.

The Arras Memorial to the missing contains over 34,000 names of British, New Zealand and South African soldiers who were never identified.

The Arras Flying Services Memorial contains the names of 991 men of the Royal Naval Service, the Royal Flying Corps, and the Royal Air Force who were killed on the Western Front and who have no known grave. Many of the famous Red Baron ‘kills’ are commemorated here.

• Vimy Ridge Interpretative Centre and preserved trenches

Discover the part the Canadian Corps played to recapture the vital high ground in the Battle of Vimy Ridge in April 1917 in the excellent Interpretative Centre.

The preserved trenches are stark reminders of how close they were in battle.

• Canadian National Vimy Memorial

After the war France gave Canada 100 hectares of land on Vimy Ridge as a note of gratitude for the role they played in successfully capturing the high ground and ultimately playing a vital part in winning the war.

The impressive and beautiful monument sits of the highest point of Vimy Ridge and rests on a bed of 15,000 tonnes of concrete, reinforced with hundreds of tonnes of steel. It stands as it’s highest point some 110 metres above the Douai Plain.

The memorial commemorates those 66,000 Canadians who gave their lives during the Great War of whom just under 12,000 soldiers have no known grave.

• The National Necroplois of Notre Dame de Lorette and the Ring of Remembrance

The plateau of Notre Dame de Lorette was a strategic position occupied by the Germans from 1914 and it was recaptured by the French Army in May 1915. There are over 40,000 French soldiers buried here, the largest military cemetery in France which shows the extent of their sacrifice in defence of their land.

The Ring of Remembrance is a striking contemporary memorial which commemorates 580,000 soldiers who fell during the Great War in the Artois region of France, who have no known grave.

• Lens 14 – 18 Great War museum

A must-see Great War museum in the heart of the front line during the Great War. The interpretation centre focuses on presenting the battles and events along the 90 kilometre front in the Artois region.