Click the above image for our small tribute to all those who served in the Great War
(may take a few minutes to download)
 Copyright© SBT Ltd 2012

LATEST
BATTLEFIELD NEWS

YPRES AND SOMME
END OF YEAR MUSEUM CLOSURES

Ypres 

The ‘In Flanders Fields Museum’ will be closed from 6 till 20 January 2014.  

The Memorial Museum at Passchendaele will be closed December 2013 and January 2014. 

Hooge Crater Museum will be Closed most of January – re-open on 26 January 2014. 

Somme 

Thiepval Visitors Centre: Closed 16 December 2013 to 31 January (inclusive) 2014 

Historial (Peronne): Closed 16 December 2013 to 1 March 2014. 

Victoria Schoo, Villers Bretonneux will be closed from Monday 23rd of December 2013 to Sunday 5th of January 2014. 

Somme Museum, Albert closes mid December 2013 and reopens the 1st February 2014.

1914 - 2014
Centenary

The battlefields remain pretty much the same year on year so our self-drive tours remain the best way to explore Ypres/Flanders and the Somme whether 2014 or any other year. 
I personally find exploring the battlefields when it is quiet most rewarding, so if you are of the same mind then may be consider avoiding the big commemorative events planned for 2014.

 It's possibly better to have visited the battlefields ahead of 2014 so that when you watch commemorative programs on TV you will recall having already 'been there' !!

Please click the below logo for the Imperial War Museum's news page for events and much, much more...

Please also have a look at this excellent website
"Centenary News"
for independent, impartial and international
coverage of the First World War Centenary
and Centennial
2014-2018

Lt Col John McCrae
'In Flanders Fields'
Spoken by Michael Haynes (click link)
(Superbly produced by DesignVision.org.uk)

.
Empires of the Dead: How One Man’s Vision Led to the Creation of WWI’s War Graves.  The story of Sir Fabian Ware and the origins of what is now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission
(click to go to Amazon)
NB We recommend this book purely out of respect for the subject and as such do not benefit form any sales

Mine Warfare and the La Boisselle Study Group

Click here for a lot more about the research being undertaken at the 'Glory Hole' at La Boisselle (Somme)

Click video link for BBC news item

In Flanders Fields Museum (Ypres)
The completely redesigned and enlarged In Flanders Fields Museum reopened June of this year!
Click here to go to the museum's new website

Have you any news you wish to show here? Just let me know and I'll be pleased to publish (if of general interest)

BIRDSONG
(BBC January 2012)

Somme Battlefield Tours is pleased to have been chosen to work with the BBC in 2001 and subsequently on two further occasions over the past six years leading a production team from Working Title Films in connection with the television adaptation of Sebastian Faulks's acclaimed novel Birdsong.  We believe we are the only battlefield tour company to have been chosen to help with these productions.

Please read this bit first - it will only take a minute or so but worth the time. . .

Please note that our award-winning Self-Drive Somme and Ypres battlefield guides are available when combined with hotel accommodation (with or without Channel crossing) whenever you wish to travel and for as many nights as you wish to be away. We arrange everything!

As you may already have found, there are many companies offering battlefield tours, especially as we approach the centenary of the Great War in 2014.  Our tours however are quite different.  Our tours allow you to reveal the hidden history of the battlefields at your own pace, at a time of your choosing, and for you and just you.  We are also one of the very few fully registered UK battlefield tour companies who have been established for over 16 years and who specialise in the Great War (Western Front) and nothing else.  We are also the only self-drive tour company to have received so many national press awards and recommendations, including Vanity Fair's much coveted ‘Best Guided Tour' award. See below for more!

You may be unsure as to whether a self-drive tour is for you. Our best advice is to have a closer look at our many testimonials to see what people like you have said after they returned from a self-drive tour (see right - or click here for all). Unlike some companies, we don’t just cherry-pick the letters we want you to read. The testimonials you see on our website are exactly as we received them - all of them. None have been excluded.

Our acclaimed Self-Drive Tours

Click here to jump straight to our Self-Drive tours page - or read on and then look in more detail. Click below for a quick look at our Somme and Ypres guides and itineraries:

Somme and Ypres guide itineraries

People who wish to visit the battlefields of the Great War quite often think first of a conducted tour.  However, for those truly seeking to reveal the legacy of the Great War, nothing can beat the freedom of exploring the battlefields without the rigid timetable of a coach/minibus group dictating the pace.  How frustrating must it be to see the battlefields passing before your very own eyes without being able to stop wherever you want to stop, for however long you want to spend, exploring what you want to explore.  The freedom to explore the battlefields at your own pace is what I always wanted, and today sets our tours apart.

If you intend visiting the battlefield you need to be well briefed. Many visitors just turn up thinking that all will be clear, which will certainly not be the case.  This is where our Self-Drive guide expertise comes in to play, expertise based on having personally conducted over 250 small-group battlefield tours. Our written guides are not just any old collection of briefing notes, copied books or cobbled together maps as offered by some companies.   Our self-drive battlefield guides are professionally produced comprising two parts, so separating navigation from the main guide. The navigation section even includes a photo of every junction you'll encounter with clear overlaid pointers.  It's written as if we are in the car with you.

Our guides are regularly updated fully bound A4 colour guides which have been carefully designed to take you on a journey of exploration, so you know exactly where to drive, where to stop, where to walk and, most importantly of all, what to look for. Our guides are only available to those booking a tour with us and so not available from shops. It is this  essential combination of comparative 'then and now' maps, photos and narratives that have made our Self-Drive guides so appealing, especially to the independent traveller seeking to explore the past in greater detail.
 

If you have in mind to book one of our tours for 2014 then please do so ASAP as our hotels only have limited accommodation and demand will be high

Our Self-Drive tour 'package' also includes your hotel accommodation and Channel crossing (for UK travellers) all dovetailed together so all you have to do is just pack and go - we make it as simple as that! 

In addition to our Self-Drive tours, we can easily arrange for an English speaking guide to pick you up at the hotel we book for you and take you on a one or two day personal tour of the battlefield. This is a truly personal service and as such you will  be just in the company of our experienced guide and not other members of the public. This service is particularly popular with visitors from Australia, New Zealand and Canada who may already be in France and who wish to focus on specific battlefields where their fellow countrymen served.

To find out more about our Self-Drive tours please click here.

   James Power 
.
about me.
A  member of the
Guild of Battlefield Guides

and

Western Front Association