Taxi Lille → Saint-Omer

Saint-Omer is an underrated city of art and history harbouring unsuspected treasures. Its natural jewel is the Audomarois marshes, the last traditional market-gardening wetland in northern France, classified as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. This 170 km network of canals nicknamed the 'wild French formal garden' is explored by traditional flat-bottomed boat called a 'bacôve', guided by a local boatman navigating between market-garden plots, floating gardens and green islets. The town itself is an architectural gem: the Notre-Dame Cathedral (13th-15th century) is one of the finest in northern France, with its monumental organ, stained glass and medieval floor labyrinth. Saint-Omer's public garden, designed in the 19th century, is classified as a 'Remarkable Garden' for its greenhouses, bandstand and rose garden. A few kilometres away, the Arques crystal factory (Arc International), one of the world's largest glassware manufacturers, offers workshop tours and a factory outlet with unbeatable prices. The Helfaut Dome, a former Nazi V2 bunker converted into a World War II museum and 3D planetarium, is one of the most impressive memorial sites in northern France. Saint-Omer was also the last English city on the continent — English Jesuits founded a college there in 1593 that educated British Catholic elites for two centuries.