" Any company is only as good as its staff. My staff is multi-national and multi-lingual. They are friendly and keen to assist in any way they can in order to make your visit to the battlefields a memorable one. I am very proud of them.

We are people from Canada, Belgium, England, Ireland, Czech Republic and Iran and the languages spoken reflect those lands and more. English, Dutch/Flemish, French, German, Czech, Polish, Russian, Italian, Persian and we can usually understand Australian, New Zealanders, Irish, Scottish, South African and American"

Steve Douglas - Owner (Canadian)
We are one of Ypres oldest and most respected independent tour companies. Since 1993, we have built a reputation of providing memorable battlefield tour experiences of the Ypres Salient, the Somme and Vimy Ridge. Our experienced, award winning guides are not only very knowledgeable in their fields but are passionate, friendly, approachable and willing to accommodate our guests needs whenever they can. Call or email our multilingual office team who will help you choose a tour to suit your needs and are glad to help with any research with regards to family members who fought or fell in the area. We would be honoured to make your battlefield visit a memorable and special experience, so please book your place in our air conditioned and comfortable minivan.'

Our Tours for 2016

Our three Ypres area tours

For the four long years of the Great War the “Flanders Fields” around the old town of Ypres witnessed the loss of a generation. In defending Ypres from the attacking German war machine a quarter of a million men of the British Empire made the ultimate sacrifice and today lie in “some corner of a foreign field” in one of the 160 battlefield cemeteries which surround Ypres.

Ypres Standard Tour

10am - 1.30pm (38.00€ pp)

  • Essex Farm Cemetery and the John McCrae site to learn about the most famous poem to come out of the war, 'In Flander's Fields', cemeteries, war graves and the headstones.
  • German Cemetery at Langemark and the 1st battle of Ypres
  • Vancouver Corner, the Brooding Soldier Memorial and the 1st gas attack - the 2nd battle of Ypres
  • Tyne cot Cemetery and the third battle of Ypres, better known as the battle of Passchendaele.
  • Also we will visit a trench on this tour.
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Ypres Afternoon Tour

2.15pm - 5.45pm (38.00€ pp)

  • The battle of Messines Ridge
  • Hill 60/Caterpillar Crater and the underground war - mining and tunnelling
  • German trenches at Bayernwald
  • Christmas Truce football/soccer match site and memorial and Prowse Point Cemetery
  • The little church of Messines and the crypt and it's connection to 4 historical figures
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Behind the Lines Tour

1000h - 1330h or 1415h - 1545h
38€ pp, 4 person minimum)

  • Poperinge - the 'shot at dawn' sites - the prison cell and the execution post and their graves
  • Talbot House - a respite house for the soldiers.
  • Lijssenthoek War Cemetery and Visitor Centre
  • Brandhoek Cemetery and the grave of the only double Victoria Cross winner
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Our tours begin with an introduction that explains why Ypres became the most famous town on the Western Front. We describe the ebb and flow of the fighting and, with wartime photographs, illustrate the almost unbelievable state of the battlefield. Our minibus then takes you slowly through the now peaceful farmland that still echoes those terrible days as tonnes of live artillery shells are still unearthed every year. All tours can incorporate visits to others sites by arrangement, so if you want to visit the grave of a relative in the area, please do let us know.

Vimy Ridge Full Day Tour

0830h-1800h (1hr travel time)
(90.00€ pp, 4 person minimum)

  • The Vimy Memorial, tunnels and trenches.
  • Cabaret Rouge Cemetery for the former grave of the unknown soldier.
  • Notre Dame de Lorette for the massive French Cemetery and the new Ring memorial, two staggering sites.
  • More as time allows.
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All of our tours can incorporate a visit to a particular cemetery and war grave where practical or others by special arrangement. Talk to us and let us know what you want to see and we'll see if we can help.

Somme Day Tour

0830h-1900h (1h45m travel time)
(110.00€ pp, 4 person minimum)

  • Lochnagar Crater
  • Thiepval Memorial
  • Lunch
  • Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Park
  • The Ulster Tower
  • More as time allows.
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All of our tours can incorporate a visit to a particular cemetery and war grave where practical or others by special arrangement. Talk to us and let us know what you want to see and we'll see if we can help.

Vimy/Somme Together in One Day Tour

0830h-1900h
Morning at Vimy and afternoon at the Somme or vice-versa
(110.00€ pp, 4 person minimum)

  • Vimy Memorial and trenches and tunnel tour
  • Lunch
  • Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Park
  • Lochnagar Crater
  • Thiepvalli>
  • More as time allows
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All of our tours can incorporate a visit to a particular cemetery and war grave where practical or others by special arrangement. Talk to us and let us know what you want to see and we'll see if we can help.

Canada Day Tour

Tour price dependent on numbers

This year, being the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, which began on July 1, 1916, means we will focus on that battle but incorporate others too. This tour is in three parts. You can sign up for one, two or all three parts.

Part 1 - June 30 – is our usual tour of the Ypres salient as indicated above. 1000h – 1745h

Part 2 – July 1 – This tour will begin at Vimy Ridge for the morning and seeing the memorial, the tunnels and the trenches. We then head to the Somme for lunch and the Commemoration ceremony at Beaumont Hamel, Newfoundland Park, where the Royal Newfoundland Regiment was devastated in the first hour of their attack. The ceremonies on this day will attract various dignitaries and so many of the sites in the area will be under lockdown with very little movement allowed. So, we will focus just on these two sites today.

Part 3 – July 2 - Today we will visit the rest of the sites on the Somme battlefields and maybe include the smaller ceremony at Courcellette for the Canadians. This is a full day tour leaving Ypres about 0830h and returning about 1900h with a stop for lunch of course.

Our special Anzac Day Tour (April 25)

Tour price dependent on numbers

Our special Anzac Day Tour (April 25) starts early when we pick you up at your Ypres area hotel or B&B at 0500h and gets you to Polygon Wood for the Dawn Service at 0600h. After the service there is a reception in the Zonnebeke feast hall with refreshments and breakfast snacks. Then we head out to the battlefields and focus on the Australian and New Zealand troops but incorporating the other Commonwealth divisions too.

Places visited will include Tyne Cot Cemetery for the Anzac Ceremony there, Hill 60 and the underground war, mining and tunneling, Messines Ridge, Ploegsteert Wood, The Christmas truce site, 3 New Zealand memorials at Messines, the little church in Messines and the most interesting crypt there and more, as time allows. There will be a stop for lunch too. This tour will finish up about 1500h.

School & Group Tours

We can offer a guide to step on to your coach for a day or half day of battlefield touring or we can arrange the whole thing – booking the coach, the accommodation and meals. For a smaller group we have minivans to transport them to the time of WW1. Talk to us and let’s work out how we can help your group have the experience of a lifetime.

One such memorable moment came in 2014 when a group of 14 members of a New Zealand hockey team were able to perform the ‘Haka’ on the actual battlefield where their forefathers fought and where many were still buried. A very powerful moment!

Watch the Video

School Tours

Salient Tours has a long history, since 1994, of guiding school groups around the battlefields. Our largest group was over 130 children in three double decker buses. This was not an ideal situation but it worked out just fine. They come back every year. Our smaller groups could be just a half a dozen students or cub scouts or sports teams or musical bands and such. We love to teach the children the story of WW1 and they are usually fascinated by it and crowd around the guide to catch every detail. We all find it very rewarding to be able to enlighten them on the horrors, the heroes, the futility and the wonders of The Great War.

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Other Group Tours

Many companies and international organisations bring their people to Flanders for various reasons and we have guided many of them over the years. We have guided The Nuffield Trust, The German Marshall Plan of the United States, The Royal Engineers, ACV International, DFDS Ferries, The ATI Group, Royal Canadian Air Cadets, PSP Brussels, The Vimy Foundation, HMS Albion Crew and many more. Again, like the schools, we can offer a walk on guide or a full organised package with coach, lunch and more included.

Book a Tour

Our tours begin with an introduction that explains why Ypres became the most famous town on the Western Front. We describe the ebb and flow of the fighting and, with wartime photographs, illustrate the almost unbelievable state of the battlefield. Our minibus then takes you slowly through the now peaceful farmland that still echoes those terrible days as tonnes of live artillery shells are still unearthed every year. All tours can incorporate visits to others sites by arrangement, so if you want to visit the grave of a relative in the area, please do let us know.

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Your tour request will be different from everyone else's, so please fill in the form with a brief outline of your needs and we'll respond to you as soon as possible, otherwise, you may use this link to email us directly.

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