The Waterloo battlefield is 20 kilometres south of Brussels — a 30-minute transfer. FFGR Belgium constructs private historical programmes at the site of Napoleon's final defeat, combining Rolls-Royce ground transfer with exclusive guided access.
The battlefield of Waterloo lies 20 kilometres south of Brussels city centre, in the village of the same name — today a quiet Brabant suburb, then the site of a battle involving 200,000 soldiers that resolved the Napoleonic Wars in a single afternoon on 18 June 1815. The engagement was watched in real time by Wellington from the ridge at Mont-Saint-Jean, by Napoleon from the farm at Le Caillou, and by an estimated 2,000 civilian spectators from Brussels who rode out that morning to observe.
The contemporary Waterloo experience has been transformed by the Mémorial 1815, opened in 2015 for the bicentenary. The facility includes a 4D cinema installation that reconstructs the battle chronologically, an archaeological exhibition built into the original battlefield soil, and a panoramic painting from 1912 (110 metres in circumference, depicting the battle at its critical moment) that is the largest narrative painting in Belgium. The Butte du Lion, a 43-metre artificial mound erected by the Dutch in 1826 on the spot where the Prince of Orange was wounded, provides a panoramic view of the entire battlefield.
FFGR Belgium constructs the Waterloo programme as a private half-day from Brussels: 09:30 departure from hotel, 10:00 arrival at Le Caillou (Napoleon's last headquarters, now a museum with the Imperial cartridge cases and the camp table from the evening before the battle), 11:00 transfer to Mémorial 1815 for the private guided tour, 13:00 lunch at La Belle Alliance (the farmhouse at the exact centre of the French line, now a restaurant), 15:00 return to Brussels.
The guide for this programme is a specialist in Napoleonic military history who has conducted the site visit for visiting heads of state, senior military officers, and private collectors of the period. The Rolls-Royce Ghost is typically requested for this programme — the battlefield's gravel approach roads and the standing required during the outdoor section of the tour make the Ghost's slightly more accessible format preferable to the Phantom.