Of all the World War II converted bunker museums La Coupole (daily: April–Sept Mon–Fri 9.30am–6.30pm, Sat & Sun 10am–7pm; Oct–March 9.30am–6.30pm; closed first two weeks in Jan; tel 03.21.93.07.07, www.lacoupole.com; €8.50), 5km southwest of St-Omer, is the most modern and stimulating. As you walk around the site of an intended V2 rocket launch pad, 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 by Hitler and taken at the end of the war by the Soviets, the French and the Americans and developed in the space race. Visits last two-and-a-half hours: 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).
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