City Breaks Europe Lille

After a great city break in Lille last month I’d just have to recommend the city for one of the most accessible city breaks in Europe coming from the UK, but also one of the most pleasing. The main reason why Lille may be chosen for a short city break is obvious – it’s because it’s the first stop on the Eurostar after Calais, and before both Paris and Brussels. But there’s more to the city than just a big blob on the  Eurostar map. Situated right in the top corner of France, Lille has been part of the low countries in the past, aligned with Belgium rather than France, and at some point with England too. Everywhere in France is now assimilated into French culture of course, such is the centralised nature of the French state ever since the revolution, but Lille proudly displays aspects of flemmish culture. Beer is preferred over wine for example, and the flemmish cuisine has  a very northern and germanic feel to it, without garlic and mettiterranean vegetables, and with sauerkraut sausages, fish stew, alsace style pizzas and other less typically french dishes.

The city of Lille itself is supposed to be the third biggest city in France, but this is only calculated by including some huge conurbations in the surrounding countryside and suburban sprawl. The actual city centre of Lille itself, within the peripherique motorway is quite small. You can walk all round in a day and on a three day trip we found ourselves retracing our own footsteps several times. Upon arrival at the Lille Europe Eurostar station we had decided to take a taxi to get to our hotel, for convenience and because the amount of time allowed was tight. But once we got to know our way around we discovered it wouldn’t have been too far to walk, and that’s what we did on the way back again. The Lille Europe station is a huge modern edifice right next to an imposing modern shopping mall, but once you walk through there, or indeed around the side, the old city is just a few minutes away and you need never re-enter the dalek city until it’s time to go home again.

Our hotel was an experiment in budget accommodation that I wouldn’t really recommend. At half the price of a conventional hotel room, the Apparthotel sounded to good to be true with cooking facilities included in the deal, and indeed it was. The service was really weird, with nobody being there at the reception at the time advertised as being manned. So we had to wait around with a bunch of other people who were all tapping away at their smart phones. One of them got through to the management or somebody who then dictated the combination number for the safe in the reception are, and lo and behold the safe opened and inside were a bunch of envelopes. One had our name on it and contained the keys to the room (scary digital keys) and documentation. So that was OK, kind of , but if we’d bothered to check Google street view before booking we’d have known that the building was right next to the busy motorway periperique road. So we were in for a noisy night, or a hot one with the windows closed.

But there are plenty of other hotels to choose from when booking city breaks in Lille Europe, so don’t let the apparthotel experience put you off. It doesn’t really matter too much how central you are either, because out in the Grand Palais area where we ended up, it was still only about twenty minutes walk into the city centre, whether the old Flanders Station area of the big square. And then only another 5 minutes into the old town area, where all the nice markets, restaurants and bars are.  In the big square by the Opera and the old Stock Exchange, I’d recommend the Chicory Restaurant – La Chicoree which has been there for years, does all the traditional flemmish dishes and is open all hours. The food is just wonderful whether you have a simple steak and chips or the special waterzoi  fish stew, carbonade or a local speciality – mussels. The beer is great wherever you go too. Leffe is the most popular, served in 25, 33 or 50cl glasses ice cold but after a while you must try some of the other brews,  perhaps a Affligem or one of the biere Ambrees from the local micro brew pubs.

I’ve said that Lille has a small enough city centre, and that makes it less hectic than big city breaks in Europe liek Paris or London, but Lille is very much a city base for city type activities. There is precious little green space around and the cars are almost everywhere. Make the most of the pedestrianized areas in the old town and the quiet area around the half finished cathedral.

So enjoy Lille for the food and drink, the flemish culture  and history as well as being a very accessible french city on the main Eurostar route.

City Breaks Europe – Lille set on Flickr

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