Today you explore the Somme battlefields of 1918, with a particular focus on the achievements of the Australian Corps under Sir John Monash. Departing Amiens, your first stop is Villers-Bretonneux, the town liberated by Australian troops on Anzac Day 1918, where you visit Adelaide Cemetery, once the resting place of Australia’s Unknown Soldier before his re-interment in Canberra in 1993. From here you travel to Le Hamel and the Australian Corps Memorial Park, site of Monash’s masterfully planned attack in July 1918, which pioneered the combined-arms tactics later used to win the war. You then visit the imposing Australian National Memorial, where the names of nearly 11,000 Australians with no known grave in France are recorded, before enjoying a late lunch at the Sir John Monash Centre, the striking interpretive centre that tells the story of Australia’s achievements on the Western Front. In the afternoon you travel to Pozieres, scene of the most costly battle in Australia’s history, to visit the 1st Division Memorial, the Windmill site and the Tank Corps Memorial. You arrive in the medieval town of Ypres late afternoon and check in to your hotel. This evening you will walk to the Menin Gate, where the names of 54,000 missing British and Commonwealth soldiers are recorded, for the moving Last Post ceremony. The Ypres fire brigade has performed this bugle ceremony every day and in all weather since the memorial opened in 1927. The only interruption was during the four years of German occupation during the Second World War, and the ceremony recommenced on the day the town was liberated. (B, L)

OVERNIGHT: Albion Hotel Ypres, or similar 1 night

STAR INCLUSIONS  ★ Full day touring the Australian battlefields of the Somme, 1918  ★ Sir John Monash Centre

★ Attendance at the Last Post Service at the Menin Gate