Lille is a large city in the Northern part of France, close to the border with Belgium. I recently visited this city with my mother and boyfriend, and as a result feel that I should strongly recommend it if you are looking for a short break at a less traditional destination.
In terms of accessibility, Lille is an ideal place to go, as so little time needs to be spent travelling. Lille is a stopping point for the Eurostar on its way to Brussels or Paris, so if you are easily able to get to Waterloo, it is only a couple of hours away.
We decided to go to Lille because I needed speaking practice for my A-Level French, and when we had been to Paris the year before I had not had much practice because
everybody just speaks English to you, and the vocabulary you need to use is just tourist vocabulary anyway.
When we first arrived, at about 10 pm on a weekday night, the station of Lille Europe seemed very daunting, as it is a very large, modern building and it was virtually empty.
Our first impressions of Lille were not very encouraging. Trying to find the way to the hotel in the town centre is very hard if the place where you are is off the map that you have been given by the travel agent. Having got quite lost following the road signs for ‘Centre-Ville’, we decided to give the metro a try. This was much smaller than the Paris metro, but complicated enough to confuse us: we couldn’t work out how to buy tickets and we got intimidated by a gang of boys (who weren’t actually doing anything intimidating).
Back up on the street, I studied the map carefully and managed to locate our position, but from then on I stopped at every junction just to check that I was right. I didn’t want to risk us getting lost at that time in a city we had never been to before.
At one street corner I stopped to study the map, when my mum said “Can you hurry up Helen, otherwise people might think we are standing on this corner for other reasons than looking at a map.” Surprised, I looked up, and saw two prostitutes shouting a conversation to each other from either side of the road. I had never seen a prostitute before, so this was very shocking for me (one lives a very sheltered life growing up in a middle class family from Guildford). We moved on rather quickly.
From then on my impressions changed. We found the hotel no problem, and it was lovely, about 8 or 9 storeys high, very close to the town centre, called “Grand Hotel Bellevue”. My boyfriend and I shared a room on the top floor while my mum had a room on the second. There was also a glass lift which was very scary.
My mum cannot get through the evening without a drink, so we went out searching for a bar in the central square. We found one that looked a bit daunting, but when we were inside, the staff were really friendly, and when my mum was unsure which lager to choose gave her free tastes. In England they would charge you for that.
We had four full days that we could spend in France. The first day we decided to spend a day getting to know Lille, so we got up late, had delicious pain au chocolats for breakfast, and spent the morning wandering around the city.
Firstly we stayed in the main area, looking at the three main squares (Place de Charles de Gaulle, Place Rihour, and Place de l’Opéra – although my memory may have failed me somewhat, please correct me if I’m wrong). These are full of beautiful grand buildings and lovely fountains.
We then moved on to the older areas, looking at the Flemish influences on the city, and returned to the centre for lunch, which we bought from a boulangerie. In the afternoon we went over to the modern areas near the station we had arrived at the night before, and spent a long time in Euralille, the big shopping centre. It was huge, nothing like anything I had seen in England, although many of the shops were very similar.
On the way back to the centre, we called at the station Lille Flandres to enquire about tickets to Paris and Amiens, a nearby town that we wanted to visit. The staff were really friendly, and it gave me a fantastic opportunity to practise my French.
In the evening we found a lovely restaurant called ‘La Chicorée’ very close to the hotel. They were offering a menu for 66F which was three courses and delicious. After that, we went there every night we were in Lille, having exactly the same meal every time!
The other days we spent mainly outside Lille, at Amiens and Paris, which were fantastic, but comments do not really belong in this review on Lille.
To summarise, I would recommend Lille as a place to visit for a short break. The culture and architecture are lovely, and hope to return there in the future.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
NH Hotels, the hotel chain leader in Europe, with more than 300 hotels in 20 countries in Europe, Latin America and Africa. Enter into our web site and find the best available tariff at all times
May 10th, 2001
very helpful by (100%):
