Vimy Ridge Tours Across Two Battlefields
Vimy Ridge tours centre on Hill 145, where Walter Allward's twin white pylons and the carved figure of Canada Bereft rise above the Douai plain, with preserved trench lines, shell craters and the chalk galleries of the Grange Subway all within walking distance of the visitor centre. Most itineraries continue south to Somme landmarks including the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial, the Thiepval arch and Lochnagar Crater, so two sectors of the Western Front fit into one route. A full-day vimy ridge tours tour, sold locally as a visite de la crête de Vimy, runs by minibus from Arras, which saves changing trains or hiring a car.
France gave the 100 hectares of Hill 145 to Canada in perpetuity, and the ground has never been returned.
That grant, made in 1922, explains why the crest above Givenchy-en-Gohelle is administered from Ottawa rather than Arras, and why the site carries no entrance fee: admission to the memorial and visitor education centre is 0 EUR.
The four divisions of the Canadian Corps fought here together for the first time in April 1917, taking a ridge that had defeated earlier assaults. Walter Seymour Allward spent eleven years building the monument that marks it, quarrying Seget limestone from a disused Roman site in Croatia. The twin pylons rise thirty metres, one bearing the maple leaf, one the fleur-de-lys. Around them stand twenty allegorical figures, and 11,285 names are cut into the walls — Canadian soldiers killed in France with no known grave.
What distinguishes vimy ridge tours from other stops on the Western Front is how little has been smoothed over. The lawns are grazed by sheep because unexploded ordnance still makes mechanical mowing unwise. Craters left by underground mine warfare pit the ground in overlapping bowls. Sandbagged trench lines were reconstructed in concrete during the 1930s, but they follow the original traces, and at the closest point the Canadian and German front lines are separated by a few strides.
Below ground runs the Grange Subway, part of a network of tunnels cut into soft chalk to move troops forward unseen. Sections are open to guided groups only, led by Canadian student guides who work the site on rotation — a programme running since the 1990s. Demand for the Vimy Ridge guided walk is heaviest in July and August, and vimy ridge tunnel tours are allocated on the day.
The memorial sits within easy reach of several bases. Vimy ridge tours from arras cover barely twelve kilometres; vimy ridge tours from lille take under an hour; vimy ridge tours from paris usually run as long day trips via the A1. Pilgrimage traffic arriving as vimy ridge tours from canada peaks around 9 April, the anniversary of the assault.
Restored and rededicated in 2007 after a major conservation programme, the monument is now the most visited Canadian site outside the country. Its address — Route départementale 55, Chemin des Canadiens, 62580 Givenchy-en-Gohelle — places it above a plain of slag heaps and beet fields, the landscape those men were sent to cross.
4 hr
