//
Photo: IGN, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
This underground bunker near St. Omer, Pas-de-Calais, was once home to Nazi Germany's V2 rocket programme, and now hosts a museum dedicated to the history of the programme, including its links to the space race. Popular with school groups, the site offers audio guides in multiple languages, has a great gift shop and is bound to make history come alive.
La Coupole, also known as the Coupole d'Helfaut-Wizernes and originally codenamed Bauvorhaben 21 or Schotterwerk Nordwest, is a Second World War bunker complex in the Pas-de-Calais department of northern France, about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from Saint-Omer, and some 14.4 kilometers south-southeast from the less developed Blockhaus d'Éperlecques V-2 launch installation in the same area. It was built by the forces of Nazi Germany between 1943 and 1944 to serve as a launch base for V-2 rockets directed against London and southern England and is the earliest known precursor to modern underground missile silos still in existence.
© OpenStreetMap contributors