TWO DAY SAMPLE ITINERARY
DAY 1
The day is devoted to the Maginot Line – “the most formidable fortification system ever built with the exception of the Great wall of China” .
How could the “impregnable” fortification built between 1929 and 1941 along the German border stretching from Belgium to Switzerland, with its 108 strong fortresses, fall? And so quickly, let alone at all! The answer to the enigma is in an understanding of the famous “percée des Ardennes”.
The only forts which were engaged in the battle stopped a German Panzer division for days. Visit both the small fort that stood against a Panzer division, and one of the colossal ones including its underground train.
DAY 2
A whole day devoted to Verdun : right bank and left bank.
For ten months two colossal armies hurled themselves at each other.
The evidence of this unremitting war is still visible 90 years later. The battle of Verdun was the longest in the Great War and destroyed more human lives than any other battles in the First World War.
Visit the fort of Douaumont and the Ossuary, and the Butte de Vauquois taken and retaken over and over again where each side built deeper and deeper tunnels: twelve miles of tunnels honeycomb the knoll.