A bit of a long shot, but a friend wants to visit sites where her grandfather fought in WWI. Specifically around the Chemin de dames, and also the site of the hospital in Craonne.
Are there are WWI buffs on here who might know of battlefield guides for this area? And not ones that cater for Americans at €1000/day! But more modest, as she just wants someone who can get her from Reims to the sites she wants to visit and back again.
Presumably she either doesn’t drive, or prefers not to?
I did a similar trip in 2018 with an Australian friend who wanted to pay his respects to his great uncle who is buried at Crouy near Amiens, and also visit other sites…
We came across from UK in my car and covered a lot of ground in NE France and Belgium in a week, with the aid of a guidebook to WW1 locations and my satnav!
The important sites are quite well signposted, small cemeteries not so much of course.
So it’s definitely doable on a DIY basis, FWIW.
She’s inter-railing so this is a bit of a longer trip so no car. She could of course hire one but not hugely confident withLHD and unknown roads. So exploring options
Understood.
I bought a cassette (that will show you how long ago it was) guide to D Day and just popped it in the hire car radio. It took me from location to location and explained what I was looking at. I’m sure there are great audio guides available now for WWI.
I’d recommend Vimy Ridge, a series of Canadian qnd German trenches and intervening craters have been preserved which really show just how close the living and fighting was.
Thank you. She has been researching this for a while, so is pretty clear exactly where she wants to go. It’s just getting there!