History
History Trails to suit your interests
Who was it who said that History is difficult to study because there is more of it every day? I know that in the time we have been organising study trips the world has changed out of all recognition. Our first tours to Moscow and to Berlin visited countries called the USSR and the GDR, neither of which exists any more. Our reason for going then was to look at the history of the first half of the twentieth century, which is still of major importance, of course, but we now also offer tours to cast some light on the period between 1945 and 1992 when Europe was divided into two heavily armed camps. The WW1 battlefields of the Western Front and the WW2 Normandy beaches remain important in our national memory and our tours to both are based on coach travel from Britain.
Rather than firm itineraries, we suggest visits which can be combined to make up the exact tour content you want.
Choose your tour below
World War I
Most British groups who visit the Battlefields of the Great War go to the sites around Ypres and on the Somme and this is where we concentrate our tours. If you wish to visit other important sites such as Verdun or even Gallipoli, please let us know – we can help. Wherever you go, if you have specific cemeteries or other sites with family or community connections, we can arrange to include these in your programme provided we know in advance.
Ypres – Suggested Visits
Hooge Crater, Dixmuide (Trench of Death), Essex Farm, Hell Fire Corner, Hill 60, In Flanders Fields Museum, Langemarck, Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate, Passchendaele Museum, Sanctuary Wood / Hill 62, Tyne Cot Cemetery, Vancouver Corner, Yorkshire Trench
Somme – Suggested Visits
Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundlanders’ Memorial, Delville Wood, Historial of the Great War at Péronne, Lochnagar Crater, Lutyens Memorial to the Missing, Somme 1916 Museum, Thiepval Visitor Centre, Ulster Memorial
It is also possible to include visits to Notre Dame de Lorette and Vimy Ridge, or to extend your tour to the site of the Battle of Waterloo or to include a number of WWII sites in the area.
World War II in Europe
The build-up to War and its consequences throughout Europe may be followed in numerous destinations and it is possible to combine two or three centres to build up a picture of the period.
| Munich |
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| Nuremberg |
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| Prague |
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| Kraków |
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| Berlin |
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World War II - The Great Escapes
We have been brought up on the books and films about prisoners of war escaping from captivity. Who does not remember “The Wooden Horse”, “The Colditz Story”, “The Great Escape” ? Come with us to visit the sites of these heroic escapes – from Oflag VI-B (the Warburg Wire Job), through Colditz Castle to Stalag Luft III in post-War Poland, scene of both the Wooden Horse and the Great Escape. (And we make a stop at the Eder Dam on the way, too)
World War II - The Second Front
More than seventy years on it is difficult to imagine the sight of thousands of Allied troops landing on the beaches of Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah in Normandy on June 6th 1944. But if you look closely there are still reminders. At Omaha beach, for example, the cliffs are still pitted with German bunkers and shell holes. A tour to Normandy will enable you to visit the landing beaches, as well as some important places associated with the liberation, and the British, American and German cemeteries. We can provide a local expert guide on request.
- American Cemetery
- Arromanches 360˚ Cinema
- Battle of Normandy Museum
- Boat tour around the Landing Beaches
- Caen Memorial
- Juno Beach Centre
- Landings Museum
- Merville-Franceville Battery
- Omaha Beach Memorial Museum
- Paratroop Museum at Ste Mère-Eglise
- Pegasus Bridge Memorial and Museum
- Pointe du Hoc
- Ranville British Cemetery
The Cold War
When the Second World War ended in 1945, Europe became divided into two armed camps facing each other across a fence and each preparing for nuclear holocaust. Our tour groups visit sites deep within Warsaw Pact countries to see both how daily life was controlled and how war was prepared for and also sites along the frontier, particularly in Germany, where East met West every day.
Berlin
Checkpoint Charlie Museum of escapes
Guided walk along the line of the Wall
Secret police headquarters and prison
German-Russian Museum
Wall Documentation Centre and Memorial
Museum of the Allies
Soviet armed forces communications bunker complex
Leipzig
Secret police headquarters and bunker
Forum of Contemporary History
Hötensleben / Marienborn
Just south of the A2 autobahn between Braunschweig and Magdeburg, a section of the frontier fortifications is preserved at Hötensleben, while at Marienborn the main GDR entry point for transit traffic to West Berlin and beyond now stands as a memorial and documentation centre.
Mödlareuth
The one-foot-wide stream running through this tiny village (population 50), marked the border between the two German states and as in Berlin, it was marked here by a wall. A section of the wall has been preserved, along with some of the border fortifications, while a museum dedicated to the division of Germany is well worth a visit.
Life in the Soviet Union - Lithuania
Lithuania today is a member of NATO and of the European Union. For those of us outside the country it is becoming harder to recall that from the end of World War II until 1990, it was not just a part of the soviet empire like Poland, Hungary and other now free states, but an integral part of the Soviet Union itself.
Our tours to Lithuania try to show a little of what life was like for the ordinary citizen. The town of Elektrenai, for example – created solely for workers at the power station, and composed entirely of monolithic housing blocks. We visit the museum in Vilnius in the building where arrests, inquisition and deportation were organised for the fifty years of soviet occupation. The Hill of Crosses at Siauliai is a moving reminder of the people’s opposition.
The tours also take in a park which contains soviet era statues collected from all over the country, and if time allows, a former soviet missile base deep in the countryside.
Religious History
Religious belief has been the driver of reform and of destruction. Our tours try to concentrate on the positive elements – the great European Jewish cultural history, Martin Luther’s journey from Roman Catholic orthodoxy to a new relationship between his followers and their God – but inevitably also include the blackest elements at such places as Theresienstadt and Auschwitz.