Back from the front

[Phil Davies (FGM)]

Phil, did you organise your own trip, or use a travel company specialising in battlefield trips properly organised (now saying that your own wouldn't be :P )... and if so, how did hotels and travel work out?

thanks for any info.

I went with a company called Ledger, I have been with them before in 2003 when I organized a Blitz club "Big Meet" to Normandy. We had had an really good guide who gave us lots of information about how battle developed which direction the attacks came from who was involved etc. The days were long starting at 7am for breakfast and not getting back till 8pm. The only bad point if you can call it that was the hotel didn't do evening meals and Menen isn't the most livley of places to go and get some either but there are one or two nice resturants there.
The trouble is with doing it this way is that your on a time table and we were only having between 10-60 mins depending on how much there was to see at places, I of course could have spent a lot longer at some. If your up for it I would take a metal detector next time, there is just SO MUCH stuff in ground as some places have not been touched since the end of the war you couldn't fail to find something. Personally now I know the lie of the land so to speak I would make my own way there with a really good guide book and do more walking, most farmers I am told don't mind so long as you don't cross the field just stick to the edges. This is a good time of year to go too as the fields have been harvested and the farmer has turned to ground over, I found a small piece of shrapnel just by doing a little field walking around the edges.