School History and Battlefield Tours - Tour destinations

The Ypres Salient epitomises the horrors of the Great War, by 1918 almost one million men were killed or wounded in the battles of Ypres and Passchendaele. Our World War 1 school battlefield tour visits the Ypres (Ieper) battlefields and trenches, museums such as the ‘In Flanders Fields’ Museum, and the Menin Gate in Ypres and its famous Last Post ceremony.

The Battle of the Somme - from the massacres of the first day to the muddy battlefield at the end of the battle, the Somme became a byword for the futility of war. Our World War One school battlefield tour to the Somme battlefields, trenches, memorials and cemetaries gives students an understanding of difficulties encountered by soldiers in the Somme.

The horror of war in the Somme and Ypres Salient inspired War Poets like Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, Edward Thomas, Edmund Blunden, and John Macrae the Canadian surgeon wrote ‘In Flanders Fields’.

From the D-Day landing beaches to Caen and the Bayeux Tapestry, Normandy is literally an open-air museum where the D-Day Landings and the Battle of Normandy took place. 50 miles of historic coastline - Sword Beach, Juno Beach, Gold Beach, Omaha Beach and Utah Beach.

In May 1940, the Germans launched their Blitzkrieg assault on Belgium and France. The speed and scale of this lightning form of warfare completely out manoeuvred the Allies who were trapped by German panzers against the English Channel. Britain mobilised all available maritime resource to evacuate some 337,000 soldiers from the beaches around Dunkirk (Dunquerque).

By 1941, the Germans thought the Allies would launch a second front from the west. Hitler ordered the building of the ‘Atlantic Wall’ – bunkers, minefields and gun emplacements from Norway to Spain, built by forced labour. Holts school tour visits the bunker at La Coupole and blockhouse at Eperlecques and in Northern France, built to launch Germany’s V2 rockets.

The might of the English Longbow has never been more effectively demonstrated than on the legendary fields of Agincourt (1415), the scene of Henry V’s great triumph. Two small outnumbered armies were able to decisively defeat their French opponents due to the longbow.

Spend one or more days in the Boulogne-sur-Mer area as an introduction to both the French way of life and using the language. Nausicaä, Centre National de la Mer, introduces young people of all ages to the diversity of sea life and its conservation.

On the 18th June 1815, Wellington and Napoleon met on the battlefield of Waterloo. The monumental Battle of Waterloo brought peace to mainland Europe, and the British Army was not to fire another shot in Europe for nearly 100 years. Wellington described the battle as ‘a near run thing’ and for Napoleon it was to end in exile and death on St Helena.

Paris can be combined with Versailles or Disneyland Paris. Attractions include the Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, Musée de L’Armee, Eiffel Tower, Champs Élysées, Notre Dame, a cruise on the River Seine. A day at Versailles can be linked to your special history topic such as ‘A Day in the Life of King Louis XIV’ or ‘The Absolute Monarchy at Versailles’ or Art.

London is a vibrant capital city steeped in history, tradition and culture. Tours can include The Imperial War Museum, the Cabinet War Rooms and the HMS Belfast ‘kip in a ship’. London is an ideal destination as a stop over en-route to Ypres, Waterloo, the Somme or Dunkirk.

The history and culture of the United Kingdom - Stratford-Upon-Avon, home of the Royal Shakespeare Company and birthplace of William Shakespeare; Bath, Roman city ideal for visits to Stonehenge, Cheddar Gorge and Wookey Hole; Portsmouth, for visits to HMS Victory, Mary Rose, and the Royal Navy Museum; the maritime legacy of Liverpool and the International Slavery Museum; York with its two thousand years of history.