Visit the great battlefields of Europe with an experienced guide. Many of our clients are repeat customers. Our two most popular tours are the World War I and World War II tours. Clio Custom Tours also provides our clients with opportunities to see a variety of places of interest with an expert tour guide.
Here is what a typical World War II Itinerary might look like, providing examples of some of the various places that can be visited on a tour.
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Day 1
On this first day of our journey, we will arrive in Paris. We will meet at our hotel and do as little or as much as we feel like doing as we allow our bodies to get on French time.
Rommel’s Headquarters at La Roche-Guyon
I will pick up our van and we will drive down the Seine River in the north of France. On the way, you will see where General Patton’s Third Army first crossed the Seine at Mantes-Gassicourt. You will also see Rommel’s headquarters at La Roche-Guyon. We will spend the night in Caen.
Day 2
Artifical Harbor at Arromanches
Today, you will see major sites of the Battle for Caen and the British and Canadian landing beaches. You will see where British paratroops were dropped and their objectives, including the bridges, the Merville Battery, and the Pegasus Bridge. You will see the lock at Ouistreham, target of the British 4th Commando.Ten we will proceed west along SWORD, JUNO, and GOLD beaches. You will see the remains of the artificial harbor at Arromanches. We will go into Bayeux and you will have an opportunity to see the great relic of the 1066 invasion of England, the Bayeux Tapestry. We will also visit the D-Day Museum and spend the night in Bayeux.
Day 3
Omaha Beach
Today, we will tour the American landing beaches, OMAHA and UTAH. We will visit the huge American cemetery at St. Laurient-sur-Mer. Then, we will go out on Pointe du Hoc to see the cliffs climbed by the Rangers and the bunkers that were their objectives. We will head north to UTAH beach. Here we will see the drop zones and objectives of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions and we will see the Airborne Museum at Ste. Mere-Eglise. Our tour includes the artillery batteries at Azeville and Quineville. On our drive south, we will pass through St. Lo and the area of Operation COBRA. We will go on to the walled fortress harbor of St. Malo where we will spend the night.
Day 4
Although it was not planned for the original WW II tour, there has been a 100% demand by groups to visit Le Mont St. Michel. This 1,000-year-old abbey on a rock island in the bay is one of the most famous sites in France. We will be there when it opens in the morning to avoid the crowds. After this step into the distant past, we will return to more recent history with a visit to the Mortain battlefield.
Later, from Mt. Ormel, you will see the spectacular “Corridor of Death” where the Allies attempted to prevent the escape of the German Seventh Army from the Falaise-Argentan pocket. On our way to Rouen, where we will spend the night, I will show you a roadside Tiger I tank and we will drive down the road where Rommel was strafed in his staff car.
Day 5
Today, you will see things you have read about, but may not know still exist! We will drive north through the Pas de Calais. Being close to England, this area was the major launching site for the German V-weapons. You will visit the “large sites” for launching V-2 rockets, the great bunker of Eperleques and the cupola of Wizernes. We will spend the night in Brugges, Belgium.
Day 6
Aware of the importance of the port of Antwerp to Allied supply, Hitler ordered his troops to hold the mouth of the Scheldte “at all costs”. Today you will see the Canadian battlefields of the Breskins Pocket and Walcherin Island. We will cross the Schelde estuary on a ferry. This is the route of thewaterborne invasion of Walcherin Island. You will see where the British heavy bombers breached the dikes to flood the island and we will look at the troop landing sites.
Then we will travel back east along the battle route used by the British to gain the island. Then we will go to “Joe’s Bridge” over the Zuid Willhelm’s canal, captured by the Irish Guards Armoured Division under Gen. Joe Vandeleur. It would be the starting line for XXX Corps in theMarket-Garden. operation. Not wanting to go “a bridge too far,” we will spend the night near Eindhoven.
Day 7
We will continue to follow the route of XXX Corps, seeing the bridges that had to be captured and held by the paratroopers of the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions. We proceed to the critical Groesbeek heights near Nimegen, a major battlefield for the 82nd, overlooking the German Reichswald. Then, on to Arnhem, where you will see the museum in the Hartenstein hotel, the British 1st Airborne Division headquarters. We will spend the night near Arnhem.
Day 8
Today, we will drive south through the area of the British OPEARATION VERITABLE to the outdoor museum at Overloon. This exhibit began with wrecks left on the battlefield and has grown to be a considerable and interesting collection. Tonight, we will stay in the center of the Hürtgen Forest battlefield south of Aachen. Two miles down the road is the grave of Field Marshall Model, which we will also visit.
Day 9
Today we will drive to Maastrich in the southern part of the Netherlands and cross the Maas into Belgium. Here, at dawn on May 10, 1940, the Germans shocked the world with the capture of Fort Eben Emael, considered by many experts to be the strongest fort in the world. We will tour the fort. We will spend the rest of the day touring the battlefields of the encirclement of Aachen and (time and stamina permitting) we may hike the Kall trail, the tenuous supply line of the 112th Infantry (28th Division) in their disastrous attack on Schmidt. We will spend a second night at Zum Alten Forsthaus, the favorite hotel of all of my customers.
Day 10
This is the first of two days that we will spend looking at the “Battle of the Bulge”. We will begin our tour following the route of Kampfgruppe Peiper, the armoured spearhead of the German assault in the north. Along the way, you will see the site of the Malmedy massacre. We will show you the site of the huge American gasoline depot that was defended by dumping flaming gasoline on the German tanks. We will show you one of Peiper’s Tiger II tanks, abandoned when it ran out of fuel, and we will show you where the American combat engineers blew the last bridge in Peiper’s face and caused him to remark about “the damned engineers”, a title which they bore proudly. We will spend the night at Dinant and see the site of the deepest German penetration at Celles.
Day 11
Today, we will see the central and southern areas of the Ardennes battle. In the key road junction town of Bastogne we will go to the memorials and the museum. Then we will proceed to Diekirch on the southern shoulder of the Bulge. The museum here has been a particular favorite of my tour groups. Tonight we stay in Luxembourg city.
Day 12
We start our tour of the Lorraine Campaign, appropriately, with a visit to the grave of General George Patton. We reenter Germany at the Our River where the first penetration was made in 1944. Then we will follow a flank assault against the German line at Ft. Koenigsmaker. We proceed through the heavily fortified zone of Thionville-Metz along the Moselle River. South of here, you will see the sites of the Dornot River crossing (which failed and had to be withdrawn) and the site of the Arnaville crossing which succeeded. Metz was a “tough nut” for Patton’s forces to crack. We proceed south and spend the night in Nancy.
Day 13
Today, we will start with the site of a meeting engagement between Manteufel’s recon forces and Patton’s recon forces at Luneville. We will proceed north to the battlefields of Arracourt. Here was fought the largest tank battle on the western front. Actually there was a series of tank battles near here lasting over a period of days. After touring these battlefields, we will head back toward Paris and stay in Reims.
Day 14
Today we will go to see the “Red School House”, Eisenhower’s SHAEF. This is where Jodl and his entourage came to sign the instrument of surrender. The room has been left as it was on VE Day. We return to Paris for the night.
Day 15
Fly home (or you may want to add some days to enjoy Paris.)
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