Join us as we travel to France, Belgium and the Netherlands for our Uxbridge Secondary School Remembrance Tour in April 2019. On this tour, we will be paying respects to the Canadians who lost their lives in the Great War and the Second World War, and pay tribute to those who did not come home and share their stories with us. We will experience history as we connect with the stories of the First World War veterans, listen to the stories of Second World War veterans; and then we will trace their footsteps through the beaches and the battlefields of Europe. We will find out who the veterans are and were, what they experienced, and learn why we honour them and remember their time in uniform. History will come alive for these students, and Remembrance Day will never be the same for our students again.
We will begin our tour in Paris, where travellers will have a full day to take in the sights and sounds of the magnificent city. During the next part of the tour we will visit First World War battlefields and cemeteries of Canadian significance, including the Somme, Passchendaele, Ypres, Beaumont-Hamel, and Vimy Ridge. The tour then moves southwest to Normandy, where Canadian D-Day troops launched the liberation of Northwestern Europe in the Second World War. Finally, we travel into the Netherlands, following the path of the Liberation in the last year of the Second World War.
Day 1 – April 5, 2019 – DEPARTURE TORONTO AND ARRIVE PARIS
Please arrive at the Toronto Pearson airport at least 3 hours before your flight departure. Board overnight flight to Paris France. Upon arrival in Paris Charles de Gaulle airport there will be a guide holding a Merit Travel sign.
Day 2 – April 6, 2019 – PARIS
This morning enjoy a full day city tour to discover the beauty of Paris which will include travel by foot, coach and public transit. It will begin with a walking tour of Ile de la cite, and we will see Notre-Dame Cathedral, which is the most famous of the Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages and is distinguished for its size, antiquity and architectural interest. A guided tour of the Louvre Museum follows. After, we will take a driving tour of Paris including the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Champs–Elysees, Hotel des Invalides … with stops for photos! Late afternoon we will see the charming village of Montmartre, once home of famous artists Van Gogh, Renoir, and Picasso. Topped by the beautiful Sacre-Coeur white basilica, Montmartre is nowadays the last village in the big city of Paris. Today the many painters on Place du Tertre are always ready to sketch your portrait, a nice souvenir of Paris.
Hotel in Paris: Ibis Porte d’Italie or similar
Day 3 – April 7, 2019 BATTLEFIELDS OF THE SOMME
Travel by coach the battlefields of the Somme, Thiepval, Beaumont-Hamel and area.
In the summer of 1916, nearly a year before the historic Canadian Army victory at Vimy Ridge, the Allied armies of Britain, the Commonwealth countries (including Canada) and France launched the largest offensive of the war thus far – to relieve the French troops at Verdun, to push back the German armies and to gain as much territory along that sector of the Western Front as possible. Allied generals set the date for the commencement of the offensive for July 1, 1916. Although thousands of Canadians took part in the operation, they did so as members of Britain’s Expeditionary Force. The offensive, which lasted until November, achieved very little. But it cost tens of thousands of lives. Key to the first day offensive was the role played by the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, which went over the top at Beaumont-Hamel. In just 40 minutes of fighting, the Newfoundlanders advanced into German machine-gun fire, and were decimated. Barely 60 of the 700 men answered roll call the next morning. The site of the Beaumont-Hamel Battlefield is considered sacred ground to Canadians and Newfoundlanders alike. We will have a guided tour at this important site, one of the most striking First World War memorials in Europe. In the nearby town of Albert, we will visit the Musée de la Somme, and then visit the Lochnagar Crater and the Thiepval Monument that commemorates the nearly 60,000 men lost in the extended battle.
Hotel in Ypres:Hotel Ibis Kortrijk Centre or similar
Day 4 – April 8, 2019 – YPRES, BELGIUM AND AREA
In 1914 when Britain declared war on Germany, so did Canada. While many of the recruits in the Canadian Expeditionary Force were British-born, they had lived in Canada long enough to sense a unique role in the liberation of Europe. Within weeks of the start of the war, German armies were on the doorstep of the major cities of France and Belgium. Among them was Ypres, where the first Canadians overseas took a stand in defence of what was known as the Ypres salient. The 1st Canadian Division exhibited extraordinary valour particularly in the face of one of the first gas attacks of the war; despite more than 5,000 casualties near where the Menin Gate stands today, Canadians held. During the Great War, the city of Ypres was virtually levelled. Throughout the siege, the remnants of the spires of the Cloth Hall stood eerily behind the Allied troops. Today rebuilt exactly as stood before the war, the building has become the In Flanders Fields Museum, which offers a tactile, engaging eye-witness account of life in Ypres for soldiers and civilians during those first years of the war. Our tour will take in the museum and a lot time to take in shops and churches around Ypres Grote Markt or Grand Place.
One of our stops today will be the Essex Farm Cemetery, which offers a fitting tribute to John McCrae, another Canadian hero of the war. The young physician from Guelph, Ontario, interrupted his practice to serve in the CEF and, in 1915, composed among the most enduring piece of wartime poetry – “In Flanders Fields.” We will visit his memorial on the Canal Bank. We will take in St. Julien, the memorial also known as “The Brooding Soldier,” commemorating the 1st Canadian Division that held its position on the left flank of the British Army after the German Army launched the first ever large-scale gas attacks; Langemarck Cemetery, where 44,000 German war dead from the campaign along the Western Front in Belgium, are buried; Crest Farm, marking the place where the men of the Canadian Corps finally took possession of the high ground at Crest Farm after ferocious fighting in the Second Battle of Passchendaele between 26th October and 10th November 1917; and Tyne Cot Cemetery the largest Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery.
We will also visit The Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917, a Belgian museum honouring the 500,000 men who were killed gaining only eight kilometres of ground in the Battle of Passchendaele.
In the evening, we will participate in the Last Post Ceremony. This moving ceremony has been held nightly at the Menin Gate since Nov. 11, 1929 (with an interruption during WWII when the Germans occupied the city). Every night at exactly 8 o’clock, Ypres police halt all traffic beneath and around the gate. As silence falls, uniformed members of the local fire brigade arrive and buglers sound the Last Post and Reveille. This is the community’s nightly tribute to all those who fought to defend their ancestors in Flanders Fields.
Hotel in Ypres: Hotel Ibis Kortrijk Centre or similar
Day 5 – April 9, 2019 – VIMY RIDGE AND TRANSFER TO NORMANDY
We will travel by coach to the Canadian National Vimy Memorial, the site in France which is a dedicated to the memory of Canadian Expeditionary Force members killed (with no known remains) during the First World War. It was here on Easter Monday 1917, when 49 battalions – nearly 100,000 Canadian men – rose from the trenches in front of No Man’s Land and accomplished the impossible. Where, for two years, neither the British nor French Armies had succeeded in overcoming the German Army occupation of the ridge, the Canadians – in a matter of hours – managed to seize and hold the most strategic heights of the Western Front. Some say the event signified the birth of Canada as a nation. There will be opportunity to visit the new Visitor Education Centre (officially opened on 10 April 2017.) The centre provides information about the Vimy Ridge in the First World War and the part played by the Canadian Corps to recapture this important high ground in the Battle of Vimy Ridge from 9 to 12 April 1917. We will explore some of the many miles of trenches and tunnels the Canadians dug in preparation for the battle, and will stand in awe at the Walter Allward’s extraordinary sculpture, the 125-foot high Vimy Memorial.
We continue on a long drive by coach towards Normandy. With our travels through the Great War sites complete, we move to a new base and our focus shifts to the Second World War and two of the most extraordinary moments in Canadian military history during that 1939-1945 conflict. We will have two dates in our minds en route to the coastal area of France – August 19, 1942 and June 6, 1944.
We will make an en route stop at the seaside town of Dieppe. This is where Canadian troops made a first attempt to crack Hitler’s Atlantic Wall. That August day, 6,000 soldiers (most of them Canadians) launched the Dieppe raid. Those nine hours on the Dieppe beaches were the nine bloodiest hours in Canadian military history; more than half the assault troops became casualties that day. We will visit the Dieppe Museum located in a refurbished theatre, where artifacts and images tell much of the story of that day. We also take time to walk that historic beach where nearly a thousand Canadians died. On to Caen as our home-base for the second phase of our tour. We will spend the next days returning to some of the locations that hold so much meaning for Canadian descendants of veterans of the D-Day landings.
Hotel in Caen: Campanile Caen Nord Hotel or similar
Day 6 – April 10, 2019 –NORMANDY D-DAY BEACHES
The next three days will give us a vivid impression of the role that the British and Canadian troops played in the greatest amphibious invasion in military history – the June 6, 1944 invasion landing at Normandy. We will also look at two American sites related to D-Day, which offer interesting contrast to styles of memorials and cemeteries.
We will spend half of the day at the Memorial de Caen, which may be the most enlightening museum available in the area. Inaugurated on June 6, 1988, it is among the most modern museums dedicated to the history of war and peace in the 20th century. Innovative, accessible and emotionally charged, the exhibits and presentation (film, photographs, letter, artefacts and historical data), this museum takes visitors on a journey into the depths of war but also into the uplifting periods of peacemaking as well.
Inland from the British Sword Beach we will take in a guided tour of the Pegasus Bridge Museum, which houses the actual bridge which British infantry (landed there by scores of Horsa gliders) captured just minutes after midnight on D-Day morning. What most of the visitors to the museum don’t realize – but, of course, we do – many of the objectives captured on the morning of June 6 came courtesy of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion who jumped into Normandy there with the British Airborne.
As well, on a more somber note, the activity in and around the previously little-known, thousand-year-old Abbaye d’Ardenne, will be explored. It was here – on June 7 and 8, 1944 – when members of Kurt Meyer’s Hitler Youth SS regiment captured and systematically executed scores of Canadian infantrymen and tank crewmen. A small memorial has been erected on the grounds of the abbey, which we will visit to pay tribute to the 45 Canadians killed in the earliest days of the Allied liberation of Normandy.
Hotel in Caen:Campanile Caen Nord Hotel or similar
Day 7 – April 11, 2019- D-DAY BEACHES AND AREA
A highlight for Canadians will be our guided tour of the most recent addition to museum row along the Normandy beaches – the Juno Beach Centre. Opened in 2003, this veterans-funded facility gives the visitor the strongest impression yet of the impact 15,000 Canadians in the D-Day operation made on that longest day.
We will be joined by volunteers of the D-day Academy, who will lead us in an exceptional experiential learning opportunity as we relive the Normandy landings and battles with guidance from local historians as we travel to many places of significance related to the Normandy invasion including: Bernieres -sur-Mer where the famous Tudor-facade building is located where members of the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada and Le Regiment de la Chaudiere landed on D-Day; Beny-sur-Mer Cemetery, where more than 2,000 Canadians who participated in the first days of the invasion are buried; Mulberry Harbour in Arromanches, where remains of the artificial harbours invented for the Allied invasion of Normandy can still be seen at sea; inland Allied landing strips, Longues-sur-Mer German Battery; and the D-Day Academy Museum.
Hotel in Caen: Campanile Caen Nord Hotel or similar
Day 8 – April 12, 2019 – TRANSFER TO AMSTERDAM
Long drive today as we follow the path of the Canadian advancement into the Netherlands and travel to Amsterdam.
Hotel in Amsterdam: A&O Amsterdam or similar
Day 9 – April 13, 2019 – AMSTERDAM
We wake up in Amsterdam to take a guided walking tour showing Amsterdam’s most famous sites. See the pristine Westerkerk, where Rembrandt and his son are buried, before visiting Amsterdams lively Dam Square, created to prevent the Zuiderzee Sea from flooding the reclaimed land on which the city sits. There you'll take in the majesty of the Dutch Royal Palace before making your way across some of Amsterdam’s most well-known bridges to Rembrandtplein square, a square packed with terrace cafes, diamond shops, nightclubs and hotels.
We will see and understand the city’s active role in history as we visit the Anne Frank House where young Anne penned her poignant diary from 1942 to 1944, while she and her family hid from German invaders.
We will also visit the Jewish Historical Museum which is the only museum in the Netherlands to focus on Jewish history, religion and culture; the Hollandsche Schouwburg, the former theatre was used during the Second World War as a deportation centre for Jews and which is today a monument to the memory of those who died; the Portuguese Synagogue and the Auschwitz Memorial.
Hotel in Amsterdam: A&O Amsterdam or similar
Day 10 - April 14, 2019 - GROESBEEK AND AREA
This morning we will travel to Groesbeek where we will take in a visit Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery. The cemetery contains 2,610 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War, and nine war graves of other nationalities. Within the cemetery stands the Groesbeek Memorial, which commemorates by name more than 1,000 members of the Commonwealth land forces who died during the campaign in north-west Europe between the time of crossing the Seine at the end of August 1944 and the end of the war in Europe, and whose graves are not know.
We will take in the nearby Underground Museum and at Arnhem the Airborne Museum, which shows the course of Operation Market Garden, with special focus on the fighting in and around the so-called “Bridge Too Far” on the Rhine River. The building in which the museum is housed, hotel "Hartenstein," played a crucial role during the whole operation. First it served as headquarters for the German commander Model. After capturing it, the 1st British Airborne Division under command of Urquhart set up their own headquarters in the basement of the building.
After lunch we travel to Keukenhof, where the famous tulips of the Netherlands will be in mid-season!
Hotel in Amsterdam: A&O Amsterdam or similar
Day 11 – April 15, 2019 – SCHELDT REGION AND AREA
This morning we explore the path of Liberation of the Netherlands in the Scheldt Region.
On September 12, 1944, the First Canadian Army was given the task of clearing the Scheldt of German occupiers. The flooded, muddy terrain and the tenacity of the well-fortified German defences made the Battle of the Scheldt especially grueling and bloody. The battle is considered by some historians to have been waged on the most difficult battlefield of the Second World War. At the end of the five-week offensive, the victorious First Canadian Army had taken 41,043 prisoners, but suffered 12,873 casualties (killed, wounded, or missing), 6,367 of whom were Canadians. We will visit the nearby The Bergen-op-Zoom Canadian War Cemetery holding predominantly Canadian soldiers killed in the fighting north of Antwerp during the Battle of the Scheldt.