Why Lille? Because I'm heading from London to Lyon; the Eurostar goes to Lille en route to Brussels, and it makes a change from staying over in Paris. And I've never been here, and can't get the measure of it at all, for a number of reasons ...
First, the very lovely hotel I'm staying in has ... themed rooms. Mine is Le Cygne - the swan. Everything is very white. The lampshades are made of swan feathers. There's a miniature Swan Lake costume on the mantelpiece under a glass dome. There's a large photo of a woman in a bath with a swan ...
Then, there's a one-off music festival going on everywhere out in the city - which basically means every single bar having a large sound system and setting up competing DJs/live techno funk or "UK garage" etc etc. Yes, there's other stuff in different parts of town, like Brazilian music - but I'm not heading out exploring, especially when there's also the France/Netherlands soccer game on, too ... It is Very Loud. Very loud.
I was greeted walking into center town from the station by a large orange cat.
Neo-brutalism was soon replaced by the picturesque - this is the most northern French town I've ever been to, and it's only 15 km from the Belgian border - but yet it doesn't feel quite like Belgium (which is understandable), although they do have in common a great deal of beer drinking and craft breweries.
Definitely pretty.
including a caryatid with a very Statue of Liberty headpiece, underscoring the Frenchness of her design.
Since I wasn't tangling with the noisy nightlife (and will be eating in the hotel tomorrow) - you may have fun guessing which one of these I had for dinner.
I've always been partial to French street art.
And then there was a whole shop full of cans of sardines.
Art museums tomorrow ... I hope they're as much fun as this.
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