Just outside the hamlet of La Boisselle, 4.5km northeast of Albert, this enormous crater looks like the site of a meteor impact. Some 100m across and 30m deep, it was created on the morning of the first day of the First Battle of the Somme (1 July 1916) by 27 tonnes of ammonal (an explosive made from ammonium nitrate and aluminium powder) laid by British sappers in order to create a breach in the German front lines.
Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¼´Ê±¿ª½±'s must-see attractions
19.55 MILES
A Unesco World Heritage Site, the largest Gothic cathedral in France (at 145m long) and the largest in the world by volume was begun in 1220 to house the…
12.06 MILES
For historical and cultural context, the best place to begin a visit to the Somme battlefields is the outstanding Historial de la Grande Guerre in Péronne…
La Cité Souterraine de Naours
18.57 MILES
Believed to date from the 3rd century AD, this extraordinary underground 'city' of quarried tunnels was started by the Romans and expanded over the…
Grand' Place & Place des Héros
19.33 MILES
Arras' two ancient market squares, the Grand' Place and the almost-adjacent, smaller place des Héros (also known as the Petite Place), are surrounded by…
26.55 MILES
It's hard not to be overwhelmed by the waste and folly of the Western Front as you walk past panel after panel engraved with 579,606 tiny names: WWI dead…
Vimy Ridge Canadian National Historic Site
25.23 MILES
After the war, the French attempted to erase signs of battle and return northern France to agriculture and normalcy. Conversely, the Canadians remembered…
2.57 MILES
Its silhouette instantly recognisable from afar, this 45m-high memorial to the missing of the Somme, 7.5km northeast of Albert, is inscribed with the…
19.75 MILES
Jules Verne (1828–1905) wrote some of his best-known works of brain-tingling – and eerily prescient – science fiction under the eaves of this turreted…
Nearby Lille, Flanders & the Somme attractions
1.11 MILES
A stark reminder of the extensive loss of life on all sides of WWI, this cemetery is the burial place of 17,027 fallen German soldiers. Only 5000 of the…
2.57 MILES
Its silhouette instantly recognisable from afar, this 45m-high memorial to the missing of the Somme, 7.5km northeast of Albert, is inscribed with the…
3.18 MILES
The 5000 Ulstermen who perished in the Battle of the Somme are commemorated by this 21m-high Gothic-style tower, an exact replica of Helen’s Tower at…
4. Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial
4.47 MILES
This evocative memorial preserves part of the Western Front in the state it was in at fighting's end. The zigzag trench system, which still fills with mud…
5. Mémorial Sud-Africain Delville Wood
5.17 MILES
The memorial (1926) and star-shaped museum (1986), a replica of Cape Town's Castle of Good Hope, stand in the middle of Delville Wood, where in July 1916…
6. Australian Corps Memorial Park
9.62 MILES
Adorned with a large bronze ‘Rising Sun’, the insignia of the Australian Imperial Force, this memorial 6.5km northeast of Villers-Bretonneux stands on the…
7. Ayette Indian & Chinese Cemetery
10.86 MILES
Towards the end of WWI, tens of thousands of Chinese labourers were recruited by the British government to perform noncombat jobs in Europe, including the…
8. Historial de la Grande Guerre
12.06 MILES
For historical and cultural context, the best place to begin a visit to the Somme battlefields is the outstanding Historial de la Grande Guerre in Péronne…