Friday, June 21, 2024

Lille (et le cygne)


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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