The Western Front stretches across Belgium's Walloon and Flemish regions. FFGR Belgium's one-day WWI memorial circuit from Brussels — Mons, Ypres, and the In Flanders Fields museum.
Belgium's landscape contains the greatest concentration of WWI memorials in Europe. The 700-kilometre Western Front passed through Belgian territory from Mons in the south to the coast at Nieuwpoort — and the battles of the Ypres Salient, fought in the Flemish fields around the city of Ieper (Ypres), produced some of the most sustained casualties of the entire war.
FFGR Belgium's WWI memorial circuit: depart Brussels 08:30. First stop: Mons (65km, 55 minutes) — the town where the first British engagement of WWI took place (23 August 1914) and where the Armistice was signed hours before it took effect (11 November 1918). The Saint-Symphorien Military Cemetery, 2 kilometres east of Mons centre, contains both German and Commonwealth soldiers — the only such mixed cemetery on the Western Front, and largely unchanged since 1914.
Ieper/Ypres (100km from Mons, 1 hour 15 minutes): the city was entirely destroyed in the war and rebuilt in the 1920s in its exact pre-war form. The In Flanders Fields museum (in the Cloth Hall, built over the ruins) is among the finest WWI museums in the world. The Menin Gate — the memorial arch where the Last Post has been sounded every evening since 1928, without interruption except during the German occupation — is 300 metres from the museum. FFGR Belgium times the circuit to attend the 20:00 Last Post ceremony if the client wishes.
Tyne Cot Cemetery (10 minutes from Ieper): the largest Commonwealth war cemetery in the world — 11,956 graves. The experience is, for many clients, the most affecting site on the circuit.
Return to Brussels: 80km from Ieper on the A19/E403/E40, 55 minutes.