Pas de Calais 03 Bergues to St. Omer

We wake to pouring rain. No chance for more morning sightseeing. It is forecast to ease-off later do we have a leisurely breakfast (fruit salad, bread, home-made jam). We have to leave by 11, but thankfully the rain stops. so off to Saint Omer, 39 km and fairly flat on minor roads, but the rain starts again and we get soaked, really wet.

In st Omer we have a flat for two nights, spacious and with a heated towel-rail – very useful for drying clothes. It was 15:30 and no lunch found – to the bakery for french pastries, apple turnovers and chocolate brioche with a nice cup of tea.

Our further consolation is finding a rather good restaurant later in the evening – “Rils” – delicious sardines on toast followed by Cod with cream and vegetable sauce and what is described on french menus as P.D.T. (Pommes de Terre – potatoes).

A day in St Omer

So to the Cathedral.
Much of interest, including vivid bas-reliefs in colour. A station of the cross.
Birth of Christ
But even here the devil is not far away, with hell-fire in his hands.

Then to the museum

On the top floor a display about bird-life with many stuffed birds some of which were going -well – mouldy.
Decorated rooms with ceramics and sculpture – I forget who the debonair chap was.
Around the crucifixion are saints Crispin and Crispinian, Roman noblemen who moved to France to preach the gospel in 3rd century, supporting themselves by making and selling shoes, caught and subjected to tortures most gruesome. A thousand years and more later the battle of Agincourt was fought on Saint Crispin’s day in 1415.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
(W. Shakespeare, Henry V).