FREE PHOTO ARTICLE: Postcards From France

As I write this I am collapsed in a chair at my hairdresser Hayley’s house looking like a poor imitation of Tina Turner in Beyond the Thunderdome with foil stuck to my head. I’ve now banked six trips to France for the year by way of tours, research and general bimbling, and so I thought I would share what in excess of 3,000 miles on the road gets you to look at from the Channel coast down to the Bay of Biscay and from the tip of Britanny to the River Meuse and Verdun towards the Eastern Frontier…

Normandy was first up, and as well as repeating the Sword Beach tour that was so successful last year, Stephen Fisher and I also introduced a long weekend at Gold Beach (above). In a feat of tour guide cruelty, he had our group, which had very much overindulged all weekend long in excellent food and drink, hike up above Port en Bessin on the final morning, but they were rewarded with spectacular views like the one below.

In the course of our Istoria tours, I picked the house I want in Normandy. Not that I have any money, and it’s also not for sale, but I also have a reserve on the seafront in Sword sector because it feels slightly more realistic. At least it looked empty…

Then next it was out to Verdun with the Great War Group to introduce nearly 50 newcomers to that sector of the Western Front. We were accompanied by my hand-knitted little friend. (Thank you Judith!)

The quayside at Verdun is spectacular for sunny summer evenings, with plenty of bars and restaurants.

In one of the French cemeteries, lie the men who were not quite chosen as the French unknown soldier. Below is a moody shot from inside Fort Douaumont, which was so fiercely fought over in 1916. We were lucky enough to have Christina Holstein as a guide. If you’re an English speaker, you’d be mental to head down to Verdun without at least one of her guidebooks in hand…

On the last morning, we also made sure to take everyone to Vauquois to one of the most mind-blowing sites on the Western Front. Here, a village was literally blasted off the hilltop by repeated mining and underground warfare…

Once everyone had left, a few of us remained in France to leisurely look at some more WW1 stuff. Below is a shot from Meuse Argonne American Cemetery, which is woefully under-visited compared to some of the others, but I think is the biggest US military cemetery outside America itself…

Then we pootled off to the Somme to do some recce work for my June tour. This included planning a morning in the French sector, so I could bang on about France’s contribution to the battle in 1916 - which totalled, I think, nearly 70,000 deaths. Below is Belvedere de Frise on the river. We talked about a French Foreign Legion chap from Switzerland that I wrote about on here last week, but it’s also been put forward as having been the inspiration for the Dead Marshes in the Lord of the Rings.

Below is a bucolic shot from a more familiar site for British war nerds. Taken from Hawthorn Ridge crater, underneath the trees in the middle is the famous Sunken Lane, where famous images of the Lancashire Fusiliers were captured before the fighting on 1st July 1916.

We also had to plan some Royal Naval Division content, hence why Judith and I were scurrying about in Beaucourt sur l’Ancre…

The next departure for France was to do some research, and comprised a lap of Brittany…

Obviously we had to start with Mont St. Michel…

Then it was on to Ploumanarc’h, which is famed for it’s red granite coastline…

Locranan frequently makes all those Instagram bucket list posts, and top 10s for the most beautiful village in France - that’s where the photos above and below were taken… It’s like Last of the Summer Wine but with better food…

There are lots of very cool little walled towns too, that have retained their look. This one is Concarneau…

Bigger, but with the same medieval vibe is Vannes (below)

I was very much trying not to make this run to France all about war, but I took this route because I wanted to go ferreting about after some French Resistance people and events in 1944 that centred on this tower

When we got to Rennes, it was a bit of a surprise to emerge from the hotel and find a school building with a direct link to the Dreyfus affair… It was where the trial took place in 1899. Then, lastly for this trip, it was a pilgrimage to one of France’s six book villages where I completely shamed myself…

And then finally for now, it was back to the Somme with an Istoria group. One of the highlights was being able to do Pozières with an Australian guest whose grandfather was here in 1916.

Richard van Emden was with us - on his very first battlefield tour - and demonstrates his superior pointing ability here just along from Bulls Road Cemetery at Flers. He was telling the story of Arnold Ridley, of Dad’s Army fame…

And here’s our group on their French morning! This was taken at the large French cemetery at Rancourt, where we told several stories and explored the memorial chapel set up by one mother whose son died nearby.

Surprised, but also delighted to find a Spad painted up with Georges Guynemer’s insignia waiting for us in the passenger terminal back at Calais…

And one last image - this from our final night in Arras.