Saint-Omer is a fine town in northern France some 40km south-east of Calais. Although it has some unattractive industrial quarters, chiefly connected with brewing, it is well worth visiting in its own right and not simply as a convenient break before leaving or returning to the channel ports.

The main square, Place Foch, flanked by a magnificent Hotel de Ville (1840), contains many good restaurants and bars. The adjoining small streets also offer good places to eat and drink, and the individual shop fronts are beautifully preserved (or restored) from the early part of the twentieth century.

There are a number of small hotels in the town centre, an Hotel Ibis, and other inexpensive chain hotels on the edge of town.

The abbey church, Notre Dame, has recently been cleaned and restored, and its white limestone exterior gleams over the nearby ramparts. Abbot Suger (architecture buffs will know of him) was born in St Omer, and Lord Roberts (of Boer War fame) died here in November 1914, and so missed most of the First World War.

Saint-Omer is 40km south east of Calais on the N43. The Office de Tourisme can be found online at www.tourisme-saintomer.com

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