TGS Alumni - Gallipoli, Western Front And Normandy Tour

The TGS Alumni office is inviting Old Boys and their families to join Dr Will Davies (1967) on a trip to Gallipoli and the Western Front… in the footsteps of the diggers.

Dr Davies is an historian, television producer and best-selling author of such books as Somme Mud (editor), In the Footsteps of Private Lynch, Beneath Hill 60, The Boy Colonel, The Last 100 Days and Secret and Special, all published by Penguin Random House Australia.

The proposed tour day will begin in Sydney. The group will fly to Istanbul and after a day’s sightseeing in the city, head south to the Gallipoli peninsula. Here we will visit the Anzac sites; Lone Pine, the Nek, Monash Valley and Quinn’s Post and then head south to the British beaches around Helles. On the final day, we will visit the sites of the calamitous landing at Suvla Bay, the home of Ataturk and make a visit to the ruins of Troy on the way back to Istanbul.

The tour group will then fly from Istanbul to Paris and begin a six-day Western Front tour, visiting the operational areas of the Anzacs in the Somme area and to the north around Ypres. Here we will attend the famous Menin Gate Service, held each night at 8pm and visit the battlefields of Messines, Hill 60, the Menin Road, Polygon Wood and Passchendaele. While in Ypres, we will take a day out to visit the beautiful Belgium town of Bruges.

From Ypres, the tour heads south, first to Fromelles where we visit the new Commonwealth War Cemetery, Pheasant Wood, before heading south to visit the massive Canadian Memorial at Vimy, then to Bullecourt and on to our hotel in either Albert or Amiens. During the next few days, we will visit the battlefields of the British July 1916 offensive: Thiepval, Lochnagar and Pozieres, The Australian National Memorial and Victoria School at Villers Bretonneau and the infamous Mont St Quentin and Peronne before returning to Paris for a Seine River dinner cruise.

Click Here for TGS GALLIPOLI, WESTERN FRONT and NORMANDY ITINERARY

Should tour guests prefer, there is also a four-day extension tour to the battlefields of Normandy and the famous beaches of Utah and Omaha for the Americans, and Sword, Juno and Gold for the British and Canadians. Then, after a free day in Paris, the tour group will return to Sydney.

The departure date for the tour is Saturday 12th April 2025 and the return date for those not doing the Normandy extension tour is Saturday 26th April. The later return date for those visiting Normandy is Friday 2nd May, arriving in Sydney Saturday 3rd May.

Should you wish to register for the tour, please use the link below to complete an expression of interest.  You can then receive an invitation to the tour briefing session which will be held at Trinity at a date to be determined.

Click here to to complete the EOI