Belgian Battlefield Day Tour from Lille: Ypres Salient
- Location:Lille, France
- Duration:8 hours (approx.)
- TOUR Code:2714_07LIL
14 reviews of Belgian Battlefield Day Tour from Lille: Ypres Salient
Read what other Viator.com travelers think about the Belgian Battlefield Day Tour from Lille: Ypres Salient. What they loved, what they liked and what they think could be improved, it's all here to help you make the most of your next trip.
Excellent tour! The guide was fantastic. He was waiting at the train station. The bus was very comfortable. It was only a small group, so the trip had a one-on-one feel. The guide knew so much information about the sites and was extremely interesting. Lunch was great and very cheap. The lunch stop even had a museum attached, which was wonderful as we had a tour through there after we finished eating. I would definitely recommend this trip to all my friends, and I would even go on it again.
Our driver/guide was very knowledgable, considerate and helpful in every way. The content of tour made it excellent and worth the expense. It was a brilliant experience.
Excellent idea to have air conditioned coach. Excellent idea to have tour guide with loudspeakers on coach. Your tour guide knew his history, spoke with authority, and was obviously enthusiastic about the subject matter! Your tour guide asked if any person had a particular site they may want to see, he showed us the Irish Memorial which we had forgotten existed it moved us to tears when we saw it, also moved Australian tourists as well! Liked the way we had time to reflect when we visited the WW1 memorials and graves the enormity of the death toll requires a little time to absorb. Good lunch served without much time lost. Really good educational day, hard work to remember all, but that's what we came for!
The tour was excellent, as was our guide. He was knowledgeable, caring and very willing to answer our questions. The scenes, in some cases, spoke for themselves. The rebuilt town of Ypres, the now-tranquil land filled with well-tended cemeteries, the crater in the middle of quiet woods, created by explosions, and the Allied and German 'pillboxes' still dotting the landscape. I suppose it would have been interesting to see a trench but apparently there aren't many around, a good thing in many ways.
This was the best tour I have ever been on and would recommend it without reservation to anyone interested in WWI history or who, like me, wanted to see the land where relatives lay who did not make it home from this terrible war.
Our tour was truly made by the guide who spoke at length and with real insight. We joined an existing multi day tour for this day and she made a big effort to get us up to speed on what had gone on and make sure we got the best we could from the experience. It had really only been after the tour when telling others that I have appreciated just how much information we picked up. Thank you.
I found the tour very interesting and worthwhile. Our guide, Mark was extremely knowledgeable. I liked the flexibility of the tour - Mark was happy to take us to a particular spot if it was of interest to a guest, even if it wasn't on the itinerary. My one disappointment was not seeing trenches, but I understand that the Somme tour shows that aspect. I didn't go on it because I thought the connection with Eurostar from London would be too fine. It turns out that the guide would have waited and that any luggage could be taken along. I think this should be made clear. We were a small group and the flexibilty allowed for us to all have dinner together, with Mark happily taking two of us back to Lille later in the evening. That was a nice touch.
The tour was good. Jeff was an interesting and knowledgeable guide. Our only wish was that we had stopped at more sites rather than just driving by them.
If you have anywhere you particularly want to look at, make it known to the driver, otherwise he might not stop. A good tour with good transport and well driven. Take your own lunch or buy a sandwich at the Hooge Crater Museum. Verify departure time and meeting place by phone as there can be ambiguity.
Very good.
The tour was great, however the non-air conditioned van was uncomfortable. It was difficult to hear most of the driver's commentary, since there were no headphones or speaker system.
Very interesting and moving experience to visit a place that is considered sacred.
An overall enjoyable day! The guide was knowledgeable and friendly, and we got to see things we may not have bothered to search out if we were doing it ourselves, as the whole battlefields area is so large. The only down side was the omission on my part to specifically request a stop that I presumed would be on the tour. The tour was also only one day of a possible three or four day tour. We were basically the interlopers in other peoples' tour.
It was not exactly what I expected, I thought I would see more trenches and WWI bunkers etc. The guide was knowledgeable and did an excellent job. It would help if you had maps of the area, battle lines and events during the drive, maybe maps you could over lay, to provide context to events as the driver is talking.
