Weekend In France

Hi everyone and welcome to another new blog post. Some of you may have caught a couple of my social media posts last weekend, where I showed a photo or two of Lille. Harriet and I, with friends, had a lovely long weekend seeing the sights. And I'll be honest, I hadn't intended to post about it here on my skiing blog page. But typical me, I got carried away with taking loads of photos, and then wondered if I should share them? Plus, I was also very surprised at how excited I was about being back in France again, albeit a very different environment to Méribel. Having spoken to many of you in the past, I know that you enjoy visiting the country, so I've changed my mind and decided to share!?!

I had never been to Lille before, plus I'd never travelled on the Eurostar train either, a couple of firsts. And I have to say I really enjoyed using the Eurostar, and can see that I will again in the future. I found it much more convenient than flying on a plane, and couldn't believe how efficient and smooth the journey was. Yes, there was still passport control to go through, but once done at St Pancras that was it. No more queues the other side (in Lille) and no waiting at baggage reclaim because you travel with it yourself. Result.

It's possible that some of you have travelled on Eurostar before, and know all about this, but I was pleasantly surprised. Plus, it travels at a jolly fast speed. It only took one and a quarter hours from London to Lille. That's a similar time as flying from Birmingham airport to Geneva. I would imagine that using the Eurostar to Paris, then changing trains to travel down to the French Alps is an enjoyable experience. And certainly more relaxing than driving down!

There were a few highlights over the weekend, one being popping up the Belfry Tower. It's part of the Town Hall building of Lille, and is the tallest Belfry in northern France. Lille itself has seven Belfrys! Constructed in 1932, it's quite an impressive building including a lift that goes up through the middle, and also 415 steps to the viewing platform. Guess who decided to take the steps instead of the lift? Yep, Harriet and me! The views at the top were well worth the effort, and we allowed ourselves to taking the lift back down. It was a quite windy at the top I have to say, courtesy of Storm Amy.

After visiting the Belfry we treated ourselves to a coffee back in the city centre. This art is directly outside the main train station in Lille Flandres, and is quite striking. Her name is Romy apparently, and she is welcoming visitors and helps celebrate Lille's connection with TV, films and travel.

Often in new towns and cities to me, I'll pop into a church or a cathedral, and Lille was no different. Called 'Notre-Dame-de-la-Treille', it had quite an interesting interior.

I'm not usually over the moon about visiting a market, with loads of people around me. But I was encouraged to go to the Sunday market, where I dug deep, and put my big boy pants on. And am very glad that I did, as it wasn't too busy. It's nothing like the market held in Méribel though through the winter, this was much more interesting. Glad I took my camera as well.

The first evening we arrived in Lille, we as a group rushed out to a bar, then onto a restaurant to eat. It was the usual first night on holiday type of thing, all good fun. But I slightly regretted not having my camera with me. So later that weekend, when our friends went to a football match between Lille and some team called Paris-Saint-Germain, we took a stroll around the streets and admired the sights in different light.

It was a fun weekend, and I'm so glad I went. Harriet had visited Lille last year, and was keen for me to do the same this autumn with her friends. And it was also nice to see yet another different part of France. I'm really going to try and continue this theme over the next few years. Right, that'll do for now. Hopefully the next post will be back on the skiing, mountains, and Méribel theme? Who knows! Time to sign off with my usual credo..... Live With Passion. Martin.