29 October 2008 - The Times -
Remembrance services will be particularly poignant this year for they will mark the 90th anniversary of the ending of the First World War. At the Cenotaph in London and at hundreds of memorials across Britain, ceremonies will be held on November 9 and, across Europe, millions will respect two minutes' silence on November 11, the day the armistice was signed.
Nowhere will the atmosphere be more emotional than on the former battlefields of northern France and Flanders, where millions died in the most appalling conditions. They will be a place of pilgrimage for thousands of Britons, young and old, descendants of those who fought and many more who just want to pay their respects and give thanks for our deliverance.
The most sombre ceremonies will be at the Menin Gate in Ypres, etched with the names of 55,000 allied soldiers with no known graves, and where the Last Post is sounded at 8pm every evening. In the Cloth Hall in the centre of the town, faithfully rebuilt from the ruins, is the In Flanders Field Museum that evocatively captures the courage and horror of the war. Personal stories, pictures painted by soldiers in the trenches and life-size tableaux are presented in an uncluttered and constantly surprising exhibition that ends with images of the rebirth of the town.
Between the most significant days, on November 10, a remembrance ceremony will be held at the Crest Farm Canadian Memorial in Passchendaele, scene of some of the bloodiest fighting, followed by a torchlight procession to the market place. Later Isla St Clair, the Scottish singer, and a pipe major will perform a unique concert in the church.
The Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917 is a few miles away at Zonnebeke and is built over a real underground field station. Battlefield tours leave from this and the Ypres museum and include visits to trenches, memorials and the awe-inspiring Tyne Cot cemetery where nearly 12,000 soldiers are buried.
The Novotel Ypres Centrum, a modern hotel in the centre of the town, is a good base for visits to Flanders and Great Escapes offers B&B there for £31 a night or three nights for £62. Ypres is less than an hour's drive from Calais, which is served by 21 crossings a day from Dover by P&O Ferries. Fares for stays of any duration start from £27 each way for a car and passengers.
For those who prefer rail travel, Railbookers suggests a base in Bruges - three hours from London by Eurostar to Brussels and a Belgian Railways connection - and then travelling on by rail to Ypres for specific events. Three nights' B&B at the Novotel Brugge Centrum and rail travel is from £179.
An alternative base for a pilgrimage is Arras in northern France, now an elegant city but the scene of a significant battle in April 1917 and where the Wellington Quarry exhibition opened this year.
From 1916, the Allies set about linking the chalk quarries beneath the streets to create a huge underground network where 24,000 soldiers hid waiting for the offensive.
SeaFrance Holidays offer three nights at the Hotel de l'Univers, a former Jesuit monastery dating back to the 16th century in the heart of the town, from £166 with Dover to Calais ferry travel with a car. Fares for return ferry journeys within three days of departure start from £25 each way.
www.greatescapes.co.uk - 0845 3302089
www.POferries.com - 0871 6646464
www.railbookers.com - 0844 4821010
www.seafrance.com - 0871 2222500
www.inflandersfields.be - 0032 57239220
www.zonnebeke.be - 0032 51770441
www.carriere-wellington.com - 0033 21512695
View this article online » 