BHull on May 31, 10 at 9:11pm
My husband and I plan to visit Belgium in September, We will have a few days in Amsterday and a week in Paris. Over a 6 day period we plan to leave Amsterdam and end up in Paris. We want to visit Brugges and Ieper to tour the Flanders Field area. We then will travel to Arras to visit Vimy and Beaumont Hamel. My questions are:

Should we stay in Brugges and take the bus/train to Ieper or should we stay in Ieper? We want to hear the Last Post in Ieper. I do have day tour information for the Flanders area.

Are there similar day tours of the Vimy area? If not are we able to get from Arras to Vimy on a local bus?

Thanks for all your suggestions and help.

Vimy is quite near Arras. Take a taxi there and ask him to pick you up after about four hours. The cost is reasonable.

Hi, We will be in that area in early July. We are staying at Valet Farm in Ieper for two nights. It is this area my husband is interested in and this accomodation came up on many sites. The people sound really nice and I have entertained my class of 7 and 8 year olds with the fact that in 1999 they found a german machine gun in the ground. I am really looking forward to seeing that part of the world. The other night we are staying in Dunkirk for that part of the history of war.There are lots of tours if you don't have a car which we will have.

BHull, the Canadian veterans' affairs website provides some guidance on reaching the Vimy Memorial from Arras. As almcd recommends, above, you can take a taxi. The website also mentions a shuttle bus that runs on Thursdays and Fridays between May and September:

http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/s...ctions/vimymem

Anselm

Hi BHull

In Ieper the Last Post ceremony is a definite must! We also did a self-guided walking tour around the old ramparts and around the streets. It took about 1 1/2 hours easy walking, and was most informative. The walk took us into parts of the city that would have been difficult to visit by car.
I think you can pick up copies of the walk from the visitor centre in the old Cloth Hall, in the centre of town. Di

Thanks for your suggestions. We will rent a car and say near Ieper. Unfortunately for us Varlet Farm is not available for one of the nights we are in the area. We'll need to decide about a change of itinerary since I'd really like to stay there.

We;ve stayed several times at the Ariane in Ieper,http://www.ariane.be/ they have an excellent restaurant too. A lot of tour groups from the UK stay there and we were invited along on a private tour of the church with them after striking up a conversation in the bar. We've also stayed at Mt Kimmel a bit further out of town. The In Flanders Fields museum is exceptional . Small torus can be purchased in the museum and the drivers are very knowledgeable.

Can't remember where we stayed when we visited Vimy

BHull

I got your emails and I replied, I guess you didn't see them - maybe they went to spam?

At any rate, I don't have a trip report written yet, but, I did stay in Bruges and took a guided van tour to Ieper and Flanders Field. It didn't stay for the Last Post although I suspect there are tour companies who would do that.

I do recommend taking a tour (versus going along) unless you already have a strong background in the history. Fascinating...