Battle of the Somme, Arras France
November 10, 2023 - by Muriel Dassen
Arras is the capital of the Pas-de-Calais department in the North of France. During World War I, the great war, Arras was literally hit in the heart and almost completely destroyed. The battlefields of the Western front lie along the river Somme and its tributaries between Arras and Amiens, South, South-west of Arras. Luckily the city has been rebuilt after the war and Arras can now be described as a beautiful, atmospheric and cosy city with a moving history. And there for the perfect central point for our tour!
Of course you can download the GPX / ITN files and full e-books of the 2 rides we have in this tour via our roadtrip planner but you can already find the info in this blogpost.
The centre is located around the 2 main squares: the Grand’ Place and the Place des Héros. The Gand’ Place is, as the name predicts, the biggest of the 2 and even one of the biggest market squares in the whole of Europe. It has been used for markets since the year 828 and a lot of the 17th-century mansions have refined details on the facades. It is even more impressive once you know that this Grand’ Place, but also the Place des Héros, were completely destroyed during WWI as soon as 1914 and renovated with the greatest care and attention in the 1920's: all the buildings have been rebuilt brick by brick.
The Place des Héros is also called the Petit Place, but still, and especially with its Hotel de Ville that does stand out, pretty impressive. And you will find many nice terraces to fully enjoy Arras with a drink or some food. The Hotel de Ville with its gothic facade dates back to 1506 but also had to be rebuilt in the 1920’s after the war. Towers like this one, the Belfry, are unique to Northern France and Belgium: we also showed you one in Bruges in our Chocolate & Beer tour. In the Middle Ages,
these belfries were a way to show off the city's wealth, but they also served as a watchtower for approaching enemies or fire in the city. This one is 75 metres high!
From the Tourist office in the Hotel de Ville at the Place des Héros you can visit 2 of the main attractions of Arras. For the first one you have to climb the Belfry for a view on the city. The major part is by a lift that takes you up to the bells and then you climb a staircase of some forty steps before reaching what they call “a threshold onto the skies”. It should give you a good view on the city with its geometric squares and tightly packed houses, with the Artois countryside where we will be doing our 2 rides in the distance. Unfortunately the lift had technical problems when we were there, so we couldn't go up ourselves and show you. For more info visit this website.
From the Tourist office you can also discover the so called Boves, offering an insight into Arras's "subterranean history". The limestone quarries were delved out from the tenth century onwards and were being used as cellars, storage for the merchants of the town's squares and later a shelter during the Second World War. For more info on the Boves visit this website.
We can also really recommend to go out of the city centre for a bit and visit the Carrière Wellington. It is a 25 minute walk one way on foot, but five minutes by motorbike or bus from the city centre. The idea was brilliant: the New-Zealand Tunnellers were in charge of linking up the quarries under the city to create a true underground network where 24,000 British soldiers would be hiding before they could launch the surprise attack. Mostly young boys sat here in the dark for weeks waiting … for an almost certain death. Very impressive and of course very much “in theme” with our Battle of the Somme tour here. We did experience that you will have to make a reservation if you want to get this experience via this website, which we managed to do for 2 days after we tried to visit without a reservation.
Arras is a beautiful, atmospheric and cosy city with a moving history. Surrounding the Grand’Place and the Place des Héros you will find many bars and terraces to end your day here in Arras. But if you like special beers, like we do, we can recommend to have a look if you can find a spot at Chez Marcel just in between of the 2 squares. They are specialised in Bières Artisanales and planches de degustation.
Recommended hotels:
With private parking on site – not covered, reservation needed and fee
applicable
With bar
In city centre of Arras
With on site private parking - covered and fee might be applicable
Tea/coffeemaker on rooms
In city centre of Arras
With parking garage with separate places - fee applicable
With bar and restaurant
Tea/coffeemaker on rooms
In city centre of Arras
With free private on site parking - not covered
3.5 km / 2.5 miles outside the city centre of Arras with some restaurants within a
15 minute walk
Rating on Booking.com Fabulous 8.9
With free on site parking - not covered
With bar and restaurant
4 km / 2.5 miles outside of city centre Arras with some restaurants within a 5 minute
walk
Ride 1
The Somme valley is synonymous with the bloodshed during the First World War and the battlefields of the Western front during WWI lie along the river Somme and its tributaries right between Arras and Amiens, South, South-west of Arras. In this ride 1 of our QUAZY RIDES Battle of the Somme tour we will be touring through
this area and actually going to Amiens for lunch if you want, but also some of the numerous WWI remembrance sites that can be found here. The ride is some 220 km / 135 miles.
Mémorial Terre-Neuvien, Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial
Our first stop is at the Mémorial Terre Neuvien which is supposed to give us a moving and realistic idea of what the fighting must have been like. It’s a park covering 30 hectares apparently with a remarkably well preserved system of trenches. There is a Visitor Centre at your right when you enter the park and it is recommended to at least go to the top of the little mound with its proud statue of a caribou, the emblem of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment that served here. From this viewpoint you will have an overall view of the site and see the maze of trenches and the ground pitted with shell holes. The park holds many footpaths that you can follow and you can cross into no mans’ land, come across little cemeteries and see the Danger Tree; the tree that stood at roughly the halfway point on the No Man’s Land area and served as a marker for the soldiers. But many were killed before even reaching it. For more information you can visit this website.
Villers-Bretonneux Memorial, Australian National Memorial
Our second stop actually holds two memorials. The Villers-Bretonneux military cemetery with the graves of more than 2,100 Commonwealth servicemen of the
First World War, of whom more than 600 remain unidentified. And located right behind it the Australian National Memorial. This memorial consists of a central tower, with spectacular views of the surrounding countryside, flanked by wing walls commemorating the 10,719 Australian casualties who died in France and who have no known grave. During the Second World War the Memorial was used as an observation post by the French. For more information you can visit this website.
We added this parking in Amiens to park your bike if you want to have some lunch or a drink in Amiens, as there should already be some nice bars and terraces at
that Place Parmentier with a view on the river Somme and the Cathedral of Amiens. The travel guide explicitly said that Amiens, the capital of the Picardy region where we’re in now, is more than just its cathedral. But with all the memorials related to the Battle of the Somme, we only had time for lunch as we’re only halfway in the ride at this point.
Back in the Arras district in the Pas de Calais department you might want another stretch of the legs if you don’t want to keep going to our last memorial of this ride
and Arras. Therefore, we have added a stop in the small village of Avesnes-lecomte, said to be “a pristine village that looks just out of a postcard”. Anyway, you
can have a little stroll or maybe a drink here.
Monument Commémoratif du Canada à Vimy
Although we already saw the memorial commemorating the Newfoundland regimen, we added the Canadian memorial as the last stop in this ride as it is said to be one of the most imposing memorials. It is a sober monument on the Vimy hill described with the 11,285 on behalf of fallen Canadians, giving you some pretty amazing views on the area and the former battlefields. The ride back to the endpoint in Arras is a bit over 10 km / 6 miles and of course the GPX / ITN file that you can download if you add this ride to your account in our online Roadtrip planner – its free to use – will bring you there. Like the city of Arras itself the area is beautiful and very nice for a motorcycle ride with a very moving history that’s being kept alive with all the memorials you can stop at. So we really liked this ride with all its stops.
Ride 2
This ride 2 is the shortest of the 2, a bit over 180 km / 110 miles, but with a bigger part IN the actual Somme Valley and we should be getting some nice views on the river and the beautiful scenery surrounding it. And because it is a bit shorter, the ride should give you the possibility to spend some time at the stops we added
within the theme of this tour, the Battle of the Somme.
Our first stop of this ride is in Péronne at the Historial de la Grande Guerre. It is a highly respected museum devoted to the history of the First World War. It is incorporated into the 13th century castle of Péronne, which had suffered greatly during the Great War and now marks the entrance to this symbolic site of WW1
history and culture. For more information you can visit the website of the museum here. And if you want to have a coffee, the museum in Péronne has a café. Or you can just stop at the Place opposite the castle to have a coffee at one of the many bars there.
We are some 45 km / 28 miles East of Amiens and from this Belvédère de Vaux you get an amazing view on the so called upper Somme valley with the river and
its interlacing ponds and marshes.
Only a few km/miles from the lunch stop in Albert we added another viewpoint, but this one does have something to do with WWI. Because this Lochnagar Crater is created by a large mine detonated beneath the German front line by the British Army’s 179th Tunnelling Company Royal Engineers, at 7:28 am on July 1st, 1916. This explosion marked the beginning of the Battle of the Somme, so we just had to go here of course. It was the largest of 19 mines, placed beneath the German front line to assist the British infantry advance, and is the largest man-made mine crater from the First World War on the Western Front.
Also in Albert there is a lot to see with regards to WWI of course. Such as the Somme Museum 1916. But – unfortunately - we don’t have time to enter every museum and we want to take you to the Thiepval memorial which is only 7 km / 4.5 miles down our ride, so we only added Albert as a stop in case you want to grab yourself some lunch here. But if you are interested you can visit the website of the museum here.
We wanted to at the Thiepval Memorial to this ride as it is one of the largest memorials in the world. It bears the names of more than 72,000 soldiers who went
missing and it reminds visitors that the Battle of the Somme was one of the most deadly of the Great War, incurring 1,200,000 casualties from 1 July to 18 November
1916. Next to the Memorial is also this Museum Thiepvalle, linked to our first stop of this ride, the Museum in Péronne. We only visited the museum in Péronne as we think 1 museum is more than enough in a 1 day ride, but if you would be interested in visiting the 2 museums, you can buy the combined ticket as it does save you a few euros. If you like us are just visiting the Memorial here, know that that is free and you don’t need the combined ticket for that.
Go on your own QUAZY RIDE
You can download the GPX / ITN files of the rides and the full e-books via our roadtrip planner and then we hope you will enjoy the rides you will be doing in this Quazy Rides Battle of the Somme tour and your stay in Arras.
If you are posting on social media, don't forget to tag Quazy Rides or use the #QuazyRides, because we LOVE to see you having fun with our rides.
