Lille
Flemish Flavoured Capital Of French Flanders, With The Grand Place, The Vieille Bourse And One Of France'S Largest Fine Arts Museums; About An Hour By Train From Paris, London And Brussels · Lille, Hauts-de-France
Lille is the main city of French Flanders, close to the Belgian border, and it feels as much Flemish as French: brick and carved stone houses with steep gables, beer halls and a love of big street fairs. The heart of the city is the Grand Place, officially Place du Général-de-Gaulle, beside the seventeenth-century Vieille Bourse, the old exchange, whose arcaded courtyard holds a book and print market and chess players. North of it, Vieux-Lille is a quarter of cobbled streets, restored houses and boutiques. The Palais des Beaux-Arts is one of France's largest fine arts museums outside Paris. On the first weekend of September the Braderie turns the whole city into an enormous flea market, with piles of mussel shells outside the restaurants. Nearby are La Piscine, an art museum in an Art Deco swimming pool in Roubaix, and the Louvre-Lens. Lille is a rail hub, about an hour from Paris by TGV and under 90 minutes from London by Eurostar, and close to Brussels, Bruges and Ghent.
Grand Place and Vieux-Lille, Lille, Nord, Lille, Hauts-de-France, France
The city is open at all times, and Vieux-Lille and the Grand Place are lively day and night. The Vieille Bourse courtyard book market usually runs in the afternoons from Tuesday to Sunday and is absent on Mondays; confirm. The Palais des Beaux-Arts generally opens every day except Tuesday, with a late closing on some days and closures on public holidays; La Piscine in Roubaix and the Louvre-Lens have their own closing days, often Monday or Tuesday, so check each before a museum day. Wazemmes market runs on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday mornings, with Sunday the biggest. Many shops close on Sundays and some on Monday mornings. The Braderie takes over the city from Saturday to Sunday on the first weekend of September, running through the night, with road closures, suspended parking and packed trains; hotels book out months ahead and prices rise, so reserve early or avoid that weekend. The Christmas market on Place Rihour runs from late November to late December. Méert and other old pastry shops keep shop hours and close on some weekdays.