Visit 1!
On Thursday, October the 24th, Charlotte and I braved the roads (not really, but you know) to drive to Lille. We had been debating whether or not to go to Disneyland Paris, and when I asked ED92 about crowds and they responded with “not so good, it’s a holiday in France” we promptly decided that Lille would be the better option.
All the more because it meant not having to get up at stupid o’ clock! For a day in Disney we would have had to wake up at 4AM, a day in Lille meant waking up at 9 and getting ready without any rush, which is exactly what we did!
Sadly, parking in Lille wasn’t quite as easy as it usually is, as the parking lot underneath the main square was full.
Google, acting as the satnav, thought it would be a brilliant plan to direct us to Printemps Rihour instead. Now Place Rihour is pretty much right behind Grand Place, so when it comes to distance, it’s fine. That said, however, it may be one of the worst parking lots in existence!
First you have to go up some kind of narrow winding ramp (which isn’t easy if you drive a Landrover Freelander like Charlotte, which is nearly the size of a common army tank) and then there’s 4 floors of parking, which also are pretty weird lay-out wise.
But hey, we found a spot and we were planning to be out of Lille before 9PM (closing time of the parking) so it seemed fine to us.
Because it was lunch time and we were hungry, we went to Pomme de Pain (that was also the first place en route) where I had a ham and cheese croissant (very tasty) and Charlotte had a vegetarian lasagne (apparently also very tasty).
Pomme au Pain has this awesome book case where you can leave a book you no longer want and/or take from the shelves. I really should remember to take some books there to find a new home!
Having fortified ourselves, we bravely tried to walk to the cathedral from memory (we had done it once in 2017, aided by a map).
La Droguerie is an amazing haberdashery store on the way. We didn’t go in this time, but if you like that sort of thing, definitely visit it!
I am proud to say we only got lost once, and because we couldn’t find anyone to give us directions (everyone said they didn’t know) Charlotte gave up and consulted Google. Which meant we did find the cathedral without too many issues :).
Frankly, Lille Cathedral is not the prettiest building, but it’s nice enough inside and if you’re into visiting churches, it’s worth having a gander. You don’t have to do a massive detour for it from the city center, it’s free to visit, might as well get in some culture.
Of course, photo taking and checking out Furet du Nord (a big stationary/book/magazine/geek store) had to happen. I didn’t get anything at Furet, but Charlotte found some things she liked and Christmas gifts for people.
I had suggested to Charlotte that we could go visit Palais des Beaux Arts, even if we would have only an hour or maybe two inside, and as she likes museums too, that’s where we went next. I hadn’t expected them to have another temporary exhibit so soon after Lille 3000, but they did! I quite liked Le rêve d’etre artiste (the dream of being an artist), and I would quite like to see it again before it closes when it’s not quite as crowded as it was. We pretty much only saw the olden times and the expo, but we had a great time looking at art, so yay!
I love this piece, I kinda want to do something like this in watercolour now!
We had discovered that the Métamorphose statues were all still out (‘till early December!) on the way to the mall, so that was a very nice surprise. I love seeing these guys! Too bad I won’t be able to go to Roubaix before then so I won’t get to see cat again. But I saw these, and this pleases me. I wish they kept them out permanently, and I really do hope they will find a good resting place for them when they get removed!
We did go to the Westfield Euralille (pretty sure it used to just be Euralille) mall, mostly because I wanted to see if they had the Terrible Tornado statue Bert wanted in any of the geek stores (we had no luck at Furret du Nord and another Micromania previously). As well as check Primark for cardigans and Sephora for a lip balm. Charlotte also wanted to pick up wine for a friend that had requested it at the Carrefour.
Plus, the mall means cheap places to eat, which is also a plus.
We had no luck on the Tasumaki statue, but I did find cheap brown cardigans (which are sadly really bad quality!) and we did find wine. Which we went and bought after dinner at Burger King.
I also saw this cool thing outside, which I had to photograph, of course. Turns out there’s a Lille Design City 2020 thing going on, which I’m pretty excited for!
I think the big yellow bust in front of Lille Flandres train station might have something to do with it as well, but I’m not sure.
Anyway, we had food at Burger King, which is significantly cheaper than Belgian BK, but doesn’t have free refills on drinks, and drinks come with plastic bits and straws (so no filling your own reusable mug to avoid unrecyclable waste and singly use plastics, alas).
They do have a bin with separate spaces for plastic etc, but it’s a total shambles. They’re not cleaned out nearly enough and people end up just chucking waste in whatever section that isn’t full. It’s also nigh impossible to position your tray to dispose of things in a clean way, which doesn’t help. #dobetterburgerking
They did have this gif photo booth thing though, which I made Charlotte do with me haha.
On the way back to the car, loaded with wine, we discovered that the Métamorphoses light up at night! Sadly I am lousy at night photography (I really have to learn the settings of my DSRL!) so it’s not the best photo, but it’s a photo nonetheless!
We made it back to the parking fine, but that wasn’t the end of the utter fail of it, oh no!
First, we couldn’t get into the parking using the ticket, because the door point blank refused to open.
A kind gentleman told us to just go through Les Printemps (the shop it’s attached to, a kind of Lille version of Galeries Lafayette I suppose), which was CLOSING. But the doors were still open (to let the last shoppers out presumably). Luckily, the security guard let us through, so we could take the store elevator that also goes to the floors of the parking lot.
Sadly, that still wasn’t the end of it, because we still had to pay the fare. Which wasn’t much, BUT the machine only accepts card or cash. In coins. No bills. WTF right… and it only accepts some coins, and a limited number of them. So in the end Charlotte paid by card.
Sure, it’s much cheaper than the parking of the Grand Place, but frankly I would happily pay more not to have to deal with this one.
I made it a point of telling Bert we are NEVER EVER parking there when we got home.
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Visit 2
And we didn’t park there on November 1st!
Yes, November 1st is a holiday in France (it is in Belgium as well), but Westfield Euralille and a vast array of other stores in Lille couldn’t care less.
So Bert had suggested we just go to Lille.
Sadly, Palais des Beaux Arts (PbA) was closed, so hopefully I’ll get to go another time before Le rêve d’etre Artiste closes. Because our satnav (don’t by a Tom Tom Go, trust me, don’t do it) was again utterly useless, I had told it to find another parking space, Nouveau Siecle, which was also nearby.
I was kinda tempted to tell it to go to République, the one right next to PbA, but I figured I could always reroute to that one if needed.
There was enough space, and even though the lay-out was weird, we managed to park without much efford. It definitely wasn’t as nice as the one under Grand Place, but it was WAY BETTER than Printemps Rihour! And at about the same cost too. So there’s that.
It wouldn’t work AT ALL for a car like Charlotte’s though, so if you drive an urban tank, this is not the parking space for you!
Anyway, car parked, we wandered to the Grand Place. Bert didn’t feel like Pomme de Pain for lunch, so we decided to go to either Paul, or find something in the mall.
On the way, I noticed that the giant new Sephora on Grand Place (there’s two on Grand Place, which seems utterly ridiculous to me, but there you go) was open, so I went in to have a look to buy Christmas presents for friends.
It took us FOREVER to find anything, because all the stands are exactly alike and it’s just hard to find things because they are so spread out.
It probably works to get people to impulse buy, but we just got annoyed. A lot. After about 25 minutes of searching high and low (literally, because we went up and down the stairs quite a few times) I had found the things I wanted to buy, and as there were only 2 people in front of me at the register (one group that left because they had forgotten something and went to look for it) I thought I’d be out soon. WRONG.
There was one lady sorting out engravings, all fine.
Two behind the register doing fuck all (even though at that that point there were several people behind me) and one faffing about like no tomorrow.
So I asked about priority registers because I didn’t see the wheelchair sign and I didn’t want to feint.
I got point blank told, and I qoute “I should have told them straight away” with a clear look of “you disabled, SURE!”.
So I said “ok then I’m leaving all of this, because I’m not about to feint”. At which point there was a sigh, and a second register was opened.
I did show my disability card, and the looks were all “oh oops…”.
So yeah, NEVER going back to that Sephora again.
The staff at Paul where we went to eat lunch was thankfully way, way kinder. They were super friendly, in fact. And also very patient because menus at a French Paul are nothing like they are at a Belgian one. Also: much cheaper than in Belgium, bonus. Bert had a menu, I just had a bretzel because come on: bretzel! :)
The mall wasn’t nearly as busy as we thought it would be, I guess most people were sticking to the shops and places to eat and drink in town, which was nice. There wasn’t much of a crowd at all at UNIQLO, where Bert got slippers and socks and I got a pair of milk tea coloured leggings.
The geek stores were still super crowded though, and alas, still no Tatsumaki statue!
We did totally luck out in Primark because ‘lo and behold, they still had brown cardigans! Bert treated me to two, because they’re brown and cheap (I will be doing a lot of mending, that’s for sure!), a pack of Christmas cards (cheap!) and a set of Halloween baubles. For the Christmas tree. Because all I want for Christmas is Halloween, darn it! #everydayishalloween
The Sephora (that’s right, there’s another one in the mall!) had a ton of Christmassy things the other one didn’t, and I wanted to get a reusable hand warmer (let’s see how long it’ll actually last) and some reusable eye cooling pads. Which are, for some reason that I don’t get, a winter thing, and not a summer thing as they should be. So those are safely put away for summer :). The mall Sephora does have an actual disability register, however, when I showed my card at the lady manning it, she first didn’t know what it was, and then said “oh but this register isn’t open.”
That’s right. Massive queue, and she was faffing about at a register (I am starting to think people don’t actually work at Sephora at this point).
She did, however, immediately poke her colleague next to her, who was very kind and said “I am going to finish up with this customer and then it’s your turn”. She was actually getting on, so that was awesome.
I did feel bad for the people I was cutting ahead of, but there was no way I could have gone into that queue.
So yeah, mall Sephora, actually ok if you’re disabled.
Inner city big new one (which does have an elevator), not so much…
Having escaped shops we went down to Carrefour supermarket, because you know: food to take home :).
We did briefly consider Burger King, but when we arrived there and saw the Crowd, we turned right back around and went to the car.
Getting into the parking lot was no issue at all, neither was paying. It was also super cheap, so a valid alternative to the Grand Place one (providing you drive a car that can manoeuvre easily).
So yeah, that were my two trips to Lille in about two weeks’ time. No idea when I’ll be going next, but it’s a really nice town, so some time in 2020 for sure.
All my photos of Lille are here :)
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