Of all the World War II converted bunker museums La Coupole
(daily: April-Sept 9am-7pm; Oct-March 10am-6pm; closed first two weeks
in Jan; tel 03.21.93.07.07; €8.38), 5km southwest of St-Omer, is the
most modern and stimulating. As you walk around the site of an intended
V2 rocket launchpad, you can listen on multilingual infra-red
headphones to a discussion of the occupation of northern France by the
Nazis, the use of prisoners as slave labour and the technology and
ethics of the first liquid-fuelled rocket - advanced through Hitler and
taken at the end of the war by the Soviets, the French and the
Americans and developed in the space race. Films, models and
photographs, all with accompanying text in four different languages
help to develop each theme. Getting there by car is easy: it's just off
the D928 (A26 junctions 3 & 4), but there are only a few buses running from St-Omer train station (ring La Coupole or St-Omer tourist office for times).
Copyright Rough Guides Ltd as trustee for its authors. Published by Rough Guides.
All rights reserved.The Rough Guides name is a trademark of Rough Guides Ltd.
