FRBV25- Saint Omer: The Sandelin Museum and the City

April 1st was dedicated to the visit to Saint Omer, a city about 45 km away.

First, the students visited the Sandelin Museum in St Omer with the help a professional guide. Both an art museum and a museum of the city's history, it has been housed in an 18th-century townhouse since 1904.

The guide started the tour by giving information about the origins of the city and its rich past.. It was one of Europe’s largest cities in the 13^th century and that is why there are so many important testimonies from the period. The students spent one hour in one of the most beautiful collections of Medieval Art in Northern France. Swords, sabres, armours, remains of mosaics, tiles, bishops' attributes, capitals and statues were displayed in the lower galleries.

 The second part of the visit offered an immersion in the art of living in the 18th-19th centuries and collecting, through reception rooms and cabinets of curiosities.

After the visit of the museum, the group had a walk in the city to discover the main monuments. They toured the superb cathedral, they walked through the old streets of the city to the ruins of the abbey of Saint Bertin where we stopped to take wonderful pictures. It was then time for the second part of the day's programme: the visit to the marshland of Saint Omer.

The students discovered Saint Omer and understood the importance of the city in the 13^th century, admired the buildings and the courtyard as well as picture masterpieces. They saw how wealthy citizens lived in the 18^th and 19^th century. They thus improved their historical culture and oral comprehension. They were quite interested and asked a lot of questions during the visit of the museum. They also enjoyed the stroll in the streets, both entertaining and educative.