Champagne & Northern France - Discover France: Experience the Best of France - page 352

Flandres (€19, 1½ hours, six to 121 daily), Paris' Gare du Nord (€19, 1¼ to 1¾
hours, 14 to 30 daily) and Rouen (€18, 1¼ hours, four daily).

Battle of the Somme Memorials
Almost 750,000 soldiers, airmen and sailors from Great Britain, Australia, Canada,
the Indian subcontinent, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, the West Indies and
other parts of the British Empire died during WWI on the Western Front, two-thirds
of them in France.
For online information, see www.somme-battlefields.com and
www.somme14-18.com .
Tourist offices (including those in Lille, Amiens, Arras and Péronne) can help
book tours of battlefield sites and memorials. Respected tour companies include
Battlefield Experience ( 03 22 76 29 60; www.thebattleofthesomme.co.uk ) and
Western Front Tours ( www.westernfronttours.com.au ;

mid-Mar-mid-Nov) .

If You Like... WWI History

If you've been moved by the Somme memorials, pay your respects at some of the sites of
the Battle of Verdun, the longest (and one of the bloodiest) battle of WWI.
The landscape around Verdun is littered with cemeteries, and battlefields still pocked by
trenches and artillery craters. By car, take the D913 and D112 and follow signs to 'Doua-
mont', 'Vaux' or the 'Champ de Bataille 14-18'. The Verdun Tourist Office (

03 29 84

55 55; www.tourisme-verdun.fr ) arranges guided tours.

1 MÉMORIAL DE VERDUN
( www.memorial-de-verdun.fr ; adult/child €7/3.50; 9am-6pm, closed mid-
Dec-Jan) The village of Fleury, effectively obliterated during the battle, is now the
site of this evocative memorial.

2 FOSSUAIRE DE DOUAUMONT
(Douaumont Ossuary; www.verdun-douaumont.com ; 9am-6pm Mon-Fri,
10am-6pm Sat & Sun) Rising like a gigantic artillery shell above 15,000 crosses,
this is one of France's most important WWI memorials.