Reims base for World War 1 tours?

I wanted to include a tour of WW1 sites from Reims when I was planning our September 2019 trip to France and Bastogne, but I just couldn't make it work. This tour looked good, but it was more than we wanted to spend.

https://www.champagne-tour.com/remembrance.html

I really did like Reims though. If you're also interested in WW2, the Surrender Museum is well worth your time. I think there is enough in Reims to fill a Saturday-Monday.

Hi,

The road from Reims leads to Verdun in Lorraine. See Chateau-Thierry on the Marne if you're in the area, the last German operational objective. Take the train from Paris Est to Meaux where the big WW1 museum is. For Belleau Wood you need the car, and the 3rd Inf Div memorial

I have been all three of these places connected with WW1 and 2.

In the spring of 2018 I did three WW I battlefield day tours out of Paris and Brussels. It seems many of the tour companies do their (~$100-$400) day tours out of those places, despite the longer drives. I used Viator, but that was what worked for my timing and budget then.

Chateau-Thierry is about half way to Reims from Paris, and Verdun (Fort Douaumont and the Ossuary, Meuse-Argonne area and the US Argonne National Cemetery is another hour farther east.

If you are designing your own battlefield tour, look at the sights the regular tours visit (like i do with the RS tours) and the Museums they feature - plot them on a map - and you can travel at your own pace. The best Museums we visited were at Diksmude in Belgian Flanders, and Villiers-Bretonneux (Australian Memorial), and Peronne (History of the Great War) in the Somme region of France. All are a somewhat north of Reims. The Ossuaries at Douaumont and Thiepval are impressively appalling.

There is a Centenary Map of the Great War 1914-1918 put out by the Institut National de L'Information Geographique et Forrestiere, which would be useful to plan your trip, but I have lost the internet reference (I picked mine up at a battlefield store of course).

I think Verdun would be a better base, as it is the site of an important WWI battle and close to the Meuse-Argonne battlefield, if they are of more interest to you than, say Belleau Wood/Chateau Thierry. Although we did stay in Reims one day this past May (to see the Surrender Museum, the Cathedral, and visit a champagne house for a tour and tasting), we actually hired a taxi to take us to Verdun the next morning to meet a private guide for a two-day tour of the Verdun and Meuse-Argonne battlefields. (The train connections to go from Reims to Verdun were poor [5 hours]; that is why we opted for a driver). In fact, I just published my review a few days ago in TripAdvisor. We stayed overnight one night in the Les Jardins du Messe hotel in Verdun, and our guide drove us back to Epernay at the end of the second day of the tour. Here is what I wrote about our tour: "We hired Guillaume Moizan for a two-day tour of the Verdun and Meuse-Argonne Battlefields in May 2019. In going over all of my photos, I estimated that we made a total of about 30 stops over the two days, walking through the crater-filled woods, around a destroyed village (Beaumont), in trenches, bunkers, pill boxes, forts, mine craters, and - the most amazing part - 50 meters underground in the German tunnels under Vaquois Hill. We also visited the Ossuary at Douaumont, climbed the 234 steps to the top of the American Monument at Montfaucon, and spent time at the American Cemetery at Romagne sous Montfaucon (the largest American Cemetery in Europe). In addition to visiting key sites of the battle of Verdun, Guillaume designed the tour for us based on my grandfather's service in WW1 in a regiment assigned to the V Corps. We traced the path of the V Corps from 26 September 1918 until late October 1918, Guillaume also took us to Varennes to see the Pennsylvania Monument, and to Chatel Chehery to see the Sgt. York memorial and trail and the area near Binarville where the Lost Battalion was encircled. I very enthusiastically recommend a tour with Guillaume; he is extremely knowledgeable about the Great War, knows the area well (he is from a town near Verdun), has a very nice personality, and speaks excellent English. He also was featured in some short tour clips on CSPAN III during the WW1 Centennial in November 2018 and in an episode of "Travels with Darley" on PBS (Western Front). We could not have asked for a better guide! My only suggestion is that to get the most out of a WW1 tour, read extensively before you go. An excellent book to start is John Eisenhower's "Yanks: The Epic Story of the American Army in World War 1"." Guillaume's contact info is: Address: 4, RTE de Verdun, 55320 les Monthairons; Phone: +33 7 70 06 66 61. If you are interested, I am sure that arrangements can be made with him to meet you in Reims and drive you wherever you wanted to tour. I recommend him without reservation.

I take it that your focus on WW1 sites is more comprehensive, rather that specialised, ie seeking those connected to the US, French, and the other Allies as related to battle sites, memorials, cemeteries, etc as well as museums.

If you want to focus on the Germans, the major German cemetery is near Arras (as is the French ) and also in Fricourt in the area of Amiens.

Chateau-Thierry is the location of the Anglo-French WW1 cemetery, which is one of the reasons I went there in 1997, yes, almost 80 years after the second battle there. You'll think of that when you see the Marne in the town. The American Church is also located there.

In the Somme area the other big WW1 Museum is in Peronne, there is smaller ones in Albert, saw it from the outside since it was closed when I got there. Both these towns were in the path of the German 1918 offensive. If you go Compiegne, obviously the opposite direction from Reims, a museum on the war is on the grounds of the railway car of the Armistice.

I would suggest if you have additional time, say another afternoon, to drive through these towns in Northern France, aside from those salient places already suggested above, and explore them where the brunt of the fighting and carnage took place...Amiens, Arras, and everything in between, literally and figuratively,.. Albert, Frevent, Bethune, Douai, Cambrai, St Pol, Vimy, Neuville St Vaast, Meaux, Peronne, Soissons, Reims, Doulens, etc etc

Thanks to all for your responses. My grandfather served in France from September 1918 until August 1919. He considered himself lucky that his division did not make it to the front until after the hostilities ended on November 11, although they did spend the winter billeted in a French farmer's barn that was rented as a barracks by the US Army. Apparently the accommodations and food were very challenging and the soldiers lived off the land, collecting their own firewood and buying (or sometimes stealing) produce from farmers in the spring and summer. He returned from France in time to march in a big parade honoring General Pershing in New York City on September 10, 1919. I am not sure where his unit was located, since all his records were lost in a tornado that destroyed my mother's home in 2011.

My husband and I are looking to vacation in this area of France in September/October of 2020 and so this forum is quite timely for me. I'm looking to visit the area my Grandfather served in during WWI, as he was with the NY 77th Division - the one that the "Lost Battalion" came from, but luckily my Grandfather wasn't in that Battalion. I'm trying to mix a bit of medieval history as well as WWI and WWII history into the trip as well. i'm finding most things 'medieval' have been destroyed in this area due to both those world conflicts. If anyone has any suggestions on finding a medieval castle nearby, please post.

Dear JBW 2808, you can find military records for your family members at your State's military museum. I was looking for information on my Great-Grandfather's service in the Civil War, didn't know unit, dates or anything, just his name and his birth date and they found everything for me. Check it out online. You could also access the information yourself with a membership to Ancestry.com, but the local military museum is easier and costs nothing. Hope that helps.

@smcarbonaro: You can find a very detailed description of the order of battle for the 77th Division in WW1 here.

Piggy backing into this thread a little. If I started from Paris (either the city or DeGaulle if flying in) is it pretty easy to get to Verdun area? I am traveling solo mid July (will be coming from Munich) but am interested in WW1 sites. Could stay overnight and hire a guide since I wouldn’t have a car. Not necessarily focused on any particular country’s experience but the most interesting sites in general. Perhaps a foolish question but do the trenches still exist?

Thanks in advance!

Todd