After visiting Paris last weekend, I wanted to visit a city that was a bit slower-paced, relaxing and charming. And I was looking for a friend who liked driving (since I’m not a fan) – in walked Claire with her great idea of driving to Lille. Yesss – here we are, on the road again.
If your first question is ‘where is Lille?’, then you’re about to find out. Lille is a city in our beautiful French Flanders near the Belgium border. It was founded in 640 and was ruled by the Flemish, Burgundians, and the Spanish before being conquered by the French. With all the different influences it encountered, Lille has become a unique flavour of this contemporary city. And it is only about one hour drive from Ostend, 2 hours from Paris.
It has been a while that I’ve been to Lille, called Rijsel in Flemish. But ‘Le vieux Lille’ still has that old charm that is characterised by the 17th century houses and by its historic square – the Lille Grand Place. Sightseeing in Lille took us to many places, since we lost our way, we saw many places twice and other places we did not find….Google maps even went crazy on us. Imagine that?! Not a lot of people around in the morning, so we just looked at the beautiful houses, the marvellous Lille Cathedral and of course the countless shopping boutiques.
What impressed me most was the stunning ‘Vieille Bourse’ on the Place du Theatre. Built in 1623 it was once a bustling and noisy place where prosperous merchants would meet to do business. It was Lille’s stock exchange and I’m fairly certain that my father would have loved this place. The architecture reflects the fact that it was a wealthy and important place. Upon entering, you’re meeting the intimidating gaze of Mercurius, god of trade. A nice fact is that every day, except for Mondays, the courtyard comes alive with countless stalls of vintage books and check games. As far as second hand book markets go, you won’t find a more elegant place than here at Lille’s prestigious Vieille Bourse. The offer of course is predominantly French but it’s a good place to score some unique vintage children’s books such as Babar or Tintin, as well as some great retro comic books. Thrifting gone wild!
All right, time for an ice cream….but nothing is open yet. Those French ….
Change of plan. Instead, we just enjoyed an early lunch and some bubbly. When in France, eat and drink like the French. I chose a galette without remembering what it was. But after a quick google search, I remembered. The galette is a bit like the French version of pizza. It essentially looks like a large grey or dark brown pancake. However, the difference between this pancake and our ‘crepes’ is that these so-called ‘pancakes’ are savoury, rather than sweet. The galette with salmon and spinach was yummy….
After our nice lunch, we decided not to visit the Beaux arts or the Modern Art museum with its Kandinsky’s, Picasso’s and Modigliani’s. Instead, we ventured to the futuristic Euralille district to visit the exhibition of ‘Colours etc.’ This is part of Lille3000 and it invites you to discover cultures via the most contemporary artists from the local area or further afield. Let’s be a bit adventurous, crazy and fashionable- or at least pretend 🙂
The exhibition ‘Colors etc.’ at the Tripostal in Lille, invites you to question your relationship to colour. It puts all of your senses on alert and invites the visitor to explore, feel, smell and hear colour through a series of immersive installations. Can we feel a colour, can we associate a smell with a colour, can we hear a colour, touch it? Many artists and designers were invited to create an ‘in situ’ installation focusing on different aspects of colour; light and colour, sound and colour, psyche and colour… Part of the exhibition is co-organised with the Design Museum Gent. In the Kleureyck exhibition, the starting point is Jan van Eyck’s masterful use of colour, revealed in all its splendour during the restoration of the Ghent altarpiece. By using oil paint and transparent and coloured varnishes, van Eyck was able to create new shades of colour, clarity and saturation in his works. His creative use of colour was the starting point for the work of the national and international designers selected for this project. Each of them has a particular affinity with the notion of “colour”.
I was actually surprised to see works of Anish Kapoor there. I saw a piece of Kapoor in the Byblos Hotel in Verona. Here in Lille it was all about the new colour, vantablack, the blackest of black. Apparently he has the exclusive rights to make art with vantablack. and it’s revealed at the biennale in Venice. Interesting to know is that this super-dark material could be used as “a cloaking material for hiding satellites” ….
After all those colours, my stomach was going crazy. Good thing that we made a reservation for a cup of tea and a waffle at ‘Maison Meert’. Can you imagine lining up for 30 minutes for tea and cake? Crazy…right? But ‘Maison Meert’ is a well-known tea-room located right in the heart of Lille. They serve an incredible array of pastries, chocolates and baked goods that are an absolute delight to the senses. They’re especially famous for their waffles, not the type of waffles that automatically spring to mind though. These waffles are thin like biscuits, as well as sweet and crunchy. The pastries at Meert are undeniably delicious, but the service is slow, and the staff a tiny bit snooty. Checking the Covid safe pass and the reservation took them ages, but people kept patiently waiting in line. And the cake and waffles were worth the wait!
This was definitively another nice French adventure. Ending a gorgeous and sunny day with some self-reflexion at the fountain of the Place General de Gaulle. The same place where I took pictures with my son Max and my mum a long time ago…Some things don’t change, even as we grow older…
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