Agree, yeah. The guided tour alone was three hours and *really* worthwhile. So much that you'd never know otherwise.
Another recommendation for Ypres as a place to stay. Pretty town centre, plenty of hotels. I stopped there for my last night of my WDW 2016 trip. There's a good WW1 museum (http://www.inflandersfields.be/en) which I'd visited with some of the UKMOC crowd on a previous trip, and the St Arnoldus Biercafe (http://www.starnoldus.be/en/home-en/) was excellent, especially the samplers allowing you to try 4 different Belgian beers. I hired a bicycle and pottered round the Ypres environs - there are an awful lot of little WW1 cemetetaries that you stumble on amidst the fields. While I hadn't originally planned to go to the Last Post ceremony at Menin Gate, I did in the end - it just felt the appropriate thing to do, especially after having got chatting to some British Army guys in the St Arnoldus who were going to be laying a wreath that evening. I don't think one can go to Ypres and not go.
Paul, If you are doing Vimy, you may as pop over to Thiepval and Lochnagar Crater, all in the same area give or take a few k's.
Hi @bradders , not to be missed in my opinion is fort breendonk, near Brussels, ww 2 prisoner camp, very impressive, baugnez 44 musea just outside malmedy, near the spa, franchorchamps, circuit, one of the finest musea in that area, the ardennes area was famous for battle, and a site you will never forget is romagne sous montfacon, in northern france, just over the Belgium border, biggest american graveyard in Europe, with just ww 1 victims, 14.246 of them, immaculately maintained, white crosses, as far as you can see, also around bastogne and malmedy there are a lot of private muses, worth while to visit, all this can be done in two days!
And while you are there you can visit monschau, just over the border into Germany, near malmedy, stopping place for the met, police bikers, to relax after a hard day training on the nurnberg ring, fairy tale town really, Google it!
Ski hutte, bier museum in Rodt, near sankt Vith, good food, hundreds of beers, ............., what more can you want LOL, nearby is the shieferstollen museum, mining museum
Living close to Hull at the beginning and end of the year I like to a trip on the bike using the zeebrugge ferry. I have day mooching about Belgium. Before leaving Calais you could visit the V3 site I believe you spell the village name as Mimoyeques. If you do go to Dunkirk then into Belgium on your way to Ypres a slight detour to Diksmuide would be good. There you will find the rebuilt Belgian "trenches of Death" and a museum in the tower there
