Lille - Belgium in France

Lille grand place

I just can't decide how to feel regarding Lille. It is a beautiful, French city near to the French-Belgian border, so 18 € for a roundtrip, and you can say, that you've been in France. :) The train trip is around 3-3 hours, so not much more than Anvers or Brugge. In the first part I was also excited, as I finally leave Belgium for the first time since my Erasmus, and also dissatisfied, as they are French. Anyway, I don't really know the French people, only the ones at Paris, so I won't be racist. The French Eramus guys are nice, so probably it's just Paris problems. :)

And we arrived to Lille. It was kind of a disappointment, as I didn't realized, I'm abroad. As we left the - btw so simple - train station, and we noticed, that we could watch the same in Wallonie. I'm not whining - okay, maybe a little bit - but it didn't satisfy me. So start again: Lille is a belle French city with lot of Dutch and/or Vallon characteristics. Anyway, there's a lot of sights, so I begin.

As our first trip was to the Tourist Office, we went directly into the heart of the city, the Grand Place. (the Tourist Office - where usually we get the map to start the journey - actually take place in Lille at a church-lookalike building next to the grand place. Inside modern, outside old and cool.) As that day we had the regular morning croissant-coffee-smoke combo already between 2 trains, we started the trip promptly in the grand place. As you can see on the first picture, the place is just perfect for selfies and photos, as the baroque buildings, the huge bell tower and the central sculpture makes easy to take a memorable picture. 

If we have enough selfies, follow the walking streets nearby, so we can see finally the house of opera, ok nice, but we weren't so enthusiastic about it, but the other, the belltower was a perfect, huge beauty. As I really love to climb these tall buildings, I tried also this time, but for some reasons I can't get into any of them in WE. :( I'm not sure, if it was closed, or it is not visitable at all, but we didn't get in, so never mind. So you still have to wait for my nice panorama pictures about some city, where I can finally climb a tower.

Though I wasn't disappointed in the church options in Lille. As I got used to that in the Belgian cities, there are a lot of old churches in the downtown area, but more or less all are quiet the same, like in Belgium, ok, maybe there is more frescos on the walls, maybe it didn't get robbed in the WW2, I guess. anyway I won't tell any more about them. Except one. There are almost 10-20 churches in the inner city, almost one in every corner, so you really can get tired of the lot of faith, :) but this weird thing is the only church if you want something fascinating in Lille.

This one church in Lille is - another - Notre Dame (de la Treille) - I am getting used to it now, that THE Notre Dame is just ONE from the bunch. :) So, as I got it well, this church is ruined in the 1st WW, and then some modern architects thought not to reconstruct it, than rather build a half new church above/in front of the old one. When I say, it's weird, you can't imagine, how much it is. (I don't have a picture yet, but I will put it in later, when I get the photos of the trip :) ) In the inside there are different plastic, wooden and textile "things" with different colours, shape in different positions. Outside it looks like a new church half-built, as it is not finished yet. So it was kinda bizarre for me, but some of us liked it very much. So you just have to see it. And finally let's go to the Citadel.

Second disappointment. The Citadel is not as interesting as I expected. On one hand, we couldn't enter, as they said, we need reservation for 3-4 weeks, uhh, and on the other hand it looks really cool from above, but is really flat, so more boring and less spectacular as a Hungarian castle on a top of a mountain. So we couldn't have a really good picture about it. But good news: the next-to park is full with picnic places and of course tourists and families, so feel free to buy a baguette and eat out. Good for photos also. And the best activity at the Citadel is the zoo, wait for it, for freeeee. So you shouldn't expect a large one, but quite nice with different, fedup, friendly animals, so nice to visit for a half-one hour. Yeah, and there is this sculpture, I don't know what it is, but looks cool.

So now comes the end of the post again, so we got to the beer. :) The picture in the left is taken from the place, where the open-air bar called Oz can be found. It was hard btw to find a place, what is not full with tourists at 6pm, so we're really glad. I loved the place anyway, and it was beautiful also in the sunshine, the sunset and the night. And now comes the real speciality. The Hungarian Erasmus from Belgium travels to France with some Polish, Russian and Swedish to get in an Australian bar to drink a French beer. :)

The Grimbergen Rouge is - as the name states - a red beer, but I didn't got any special glass or bottle, so I'm not sure about the design. It is a specially sweet beer, as e.g. the Kriek's in Belgium, so not a typical beer, not strong, I think 6% only, not sour, but I loved it. There is some nice fruit taste inside, that I couldn't identify, maybe next time, if I drink I will remember. Anyway, best red beer so far. :)

Beauty: 2/3

Sights: 2/3

Specialities: 1/2 - zoo, no Citadel

Mood: 2/2

City rating: 7/10 - nice, but maybe not worth to travel so much for another Belgian city...

Grimbergen Rouge rating: 9/10