In 1916, the dusty lanes of Piccadie resounded to the tramp of boots of British soldiers

as they marched ever forward to take part in the Battle of the Somme.

More than a century later, what remains?

What can we see of the Somme in a day?

In this, the second of our battlefields in a day series,

we're travelling to the Somme in northern France. Here in 1916, the Battle of the Somme was fought,

and the Somme really has become one of the most iconic battlefields of the Great War.

So what do we hope to achieve in these battlefields in the day series?

Well obviously we can't cover the whole battlefield.

The idea is to give you an insight into that particular battle and the battlefield as it is today,

to inspire you perhaps to make a visit to that area for the first time and for those of you I know many people who listen to the podcast travel

regularly in normal times to the battlefield to the Great War perhaps some of the lesser known

locations that we talk about it'll inspire you to visit some of those as well.

And for the many podcast listeners who live so far away from these places, it'll serve, I hope,

as a virtual journey through this battlefield area. So as this is our second Battlefields

and a day episode, we'll begin to establish a regular kind of preparation for making these sorts of visits.

And as I said in the one about Eap, in some respects, when it comes to reading preparation for a visit like this,

by all means do some reading and there are plenty of books on the Battle of the Somme.

You could fill an entire library with them in many respects. And we books on the Battle of the Somme you could fill an entire

library with them in many respects and we'll talk about some of the books on this subject shortly

but one of the things that I always say sometimes you get more from the reading once you've been

to get out on the ground to familiarize yourself with that, to see how all these places knit together,

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