Curly Hair, Been There is a segment that explore the different places in the world I have been, and my experiences there. Living in Paris is interesting enough, but feeling spontaneous I decided to travel to a different city. So, I went to Lille for a day.
Curly Hair, Been There: Lille
I took a Thalys train from Paris Nord to Lille Flandres, which took just over an hour and cost me only £18. I got up suuuper early and I arrived in Lille just before 10am.
I left the station (massive and cool btw) to be greeted by this lovely sight:
It turns out there was some Hispanic celebration going on (dorado something or other) and so there was lots of cool decor everywhere. Not only were there those statues, there were also these ribbons:
and these ofrendas:
I walked over to the shopping mall, Euralille, (huge) because of course I needed a coffee, so I sat down in Starbucks and planned my day.
I decided that from the mall I'd go and find the main square, the Place du Général de Gaulle (named so as Lille is the birthplace of French icon Charles de Gaulle), as it had a few of the different things I'd wanted to see. The square itself, especially that early, was beautiful and peaceful. A few of the cool things I saw were:
This mall with an emblem on it, that I'm guessing was part of the celebrations,
La Vieille Bourse, or the Old Stock Exchange, a beautiful 17th century building
I next walked down the street a bit to see this beautiful church, L'église de Saint Maurice:
Lille has a lot of beautiful gothic, Flemish style architecture, especially its churches, and I was determined to see lots of lovely buildings.
Continuing my tour, I headed to the Lille Opera house, which was pretty majestic:
On my way to my next stop, le Palais Royale, I stumbled across this monument to Lille soldiers, at which a tribute was taking place. It was very patriotic and very moving to watch:
The Palais des Beaux-Arts, or the Fine Arts Museum is an incredibly impressive building. It holds a large collection of modern arts, and while I didn't go in, it was interesting to look at from the outside:
Directly across the square (la Place de la République) from this palace was the Préfecture du Nord, a government office which also looked like a palace:
After seeing these incredible buildings, I headed for the Porte de Paris, a 17th century monument built after Louis XVI captured the city:
It's, again, very impressive and, although it's in a kind of random place, it's worth seeing. Not only is it a pretty arch, it also has a cute garden below it, when you walk through it:
Next I decided it was time for lunch, I was starving and ready for something to eat. I stopped at this little café called Chez Léontine, which was not super pricey and very nice:
Plus they had these cute dinos everywhere:
After this much needed rest, I headed for the zoo, stopping off at certain points on the way.
I saw the monument to Louis Pasteur (also from Lille), which, if anything, shows how much anti-vaxxers need to get it together:
And another church, Notre Dame de Pentecôte: which was so impressive:
Then I made it to the zoo. It's not huge, but for only 4€ entry it's worth it. Just have a bunch of pics from there:
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| Alpaca |
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| Sleepy Sloth |
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| Sleepy Arctic Fox |
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| White Rhinos |
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| That cannot be comfy |
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| baby meerkat! |
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| a lil monkey |
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| "wot u lookin at m9" |
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| Giant tortoise |
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| Some bird with a pretty impressive headdress |
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| big ol lizard |
And this Siamang, who really enjoyed showing off for us
After the zoo, I was very tired so I sat down for a bit and planned what to do next. I decided to go and see the Musée Hospice Comtesse, which is basically a museum established in a fifteenth century monastery and hospital, and I have to say I can almost guarantee that that place is haunted. It was pretty interesting, but the architecture of it was especially beautiful:
After I'd seen enough of that, I headed out to get some Merveilleux, the Lillois specialty, and then went to see the more famous of the many churches, Notre Dame de la Treille, which seemed more modern than the others:
It was a great building and a nice view by which to eat my merveilleux:
Getting tired, I wandered around some more, finally sitting down to have some good old fashioned French fries, in the Flemish style: double fried and dipped in mayonnaise:
After my long day of walking and eating, I headed back to the station to get my train home.
All in all, it was pretty easy to see all of Lille in a day, but if you want to take stuff in a bit more than I did, and go in all of the buildings, I reckon you'd need a whole weekend. I enjoyed the city though, and would thoroughly recommend it as a city break or a day away.
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