Note: This day cannot be a Monday or Tuesday, as the Liberation Museum is closed.

Today you will depart Arras and travel east to the town of Le Quesnoy, which was captured by New Zealand troops in the closing stages of the war. The 18th-century Vauban fortifications protecting the town allowed the Germans stationed there to hold out against the Allies. However, the accuracy of the New Zealand artillery disrupted the organisation of the German defence.

The Kiwi soldiers managed to set up a ladder on the south side of the town and enter through a floodgate, completely surprising the Germans who, after much fighting, surrendered the town on the evening of 4 November 1918. The Armistice was signed a week later.

This morning you will visit the New Zealand Liberation Museum, built to honour the remarkable actions of the New Zealand soldiers who liberated the town of Le Quesnoy.

Your next stop will be the Cité Bonjean Military Cemetery in the region of Armentières. The cemetery began in October 1914, and during the winter of 1914–15 it was used for civilian burials, as the town cemetery at Le Bizet was too exposed. It continued to be used by field ambulances and fighting units (particularly the 4th, 6th, 21st, New Zealand, 17th, and 57th (West Lancashire) Divisions, and the Australian Corps) until April 1918. Within the cemetery stands the Cité Bonjean New Zealand Memorial, commemorating 47 officers and men of the New Zealand Division who died in the neighbourhood of Armentières and have no known grave.

Leaving France, you will cross over the Belgian border to the village of Messines, which was captured by New Zealanders during a brilliant attack in June 1917. Here you will visit the New Zealand Memorial and Memorial to the Missing, the Visitors Centre and Statue, and the Church and VC Plaque.

You will then travel to Ypres, a charming town that between 1914 and 1918 was completely destroyed by shellfire and came to symbolise the horror of the First World War.

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 in the Second World War; the ceremony recommenced on the day the town was liberated. (B)

OVERNIGHT: Albion Ypres hotel or similar