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Lille, a city with a Flemish flavour

Whatever your interest – art, architecture, gastronomy or shopping – Lille, France’s fifth largest city, has something for everyone. Helped by the launch of Eurostar services in 1994, which really put Lille on the tourist map, in recent years the city has undergone an amazing transformation and is now a vibrant cultural centre.

Lille, capital of French Flanders

Times have not always been so good, though. Being so close to the Belgian border, Lille (Rijsel in Flemish) has known periods of great turbulence, including eleven sieges. It has been part of Belgium and even ruled by Holland and Spain, all of which has left its mark on the city. Lille’s focal point, lined with gabled, Flemish-style mansions and pavement cafés, is the Grand’Place, at the centre of which stands a statue of the Déesse (goddess), a symbol of Lille’s resistance to the Austrian siege in 1792. The east side of the square is dominated by one of Lille’s greatest landmarks, the lavishly ornate Vieille Bourse (old Stock Exchange), a blend of Flemish and French influences built during the Spanish occupation whose arcaded central courtyard now houses flower and book stalls. In the adjacent square, the Place du Théâtre, are examples of Flemish Renaissance architecture with Baroque flourishes as well as another landmark, the Opéra, boasting a beautifully-sculpted façade. North of these two great places stretches the Old Quarter (Vieux Lille), an intriguing and atmospheric maze of cobbled streets and alleys lined with red-brick terraced buildings that house restaurants, bistros and chic boutiques. Within this labyrinth are the cathedral, with its unusual translucent marble façade completed in 1999, and the house in which Charles de Gaulle was born, now a museum dedicated to his life. All of these sites can be reached on foot – one of Lille’s many charms – as can the superbly-preserved citadel. Designed by Vauban in 1667 to defend against attack from the Spanish Netherlands, the star-shaped fortress is one of France’s best examples of 17th-century military architecture. Unusually, it was built on marshy low land, and a complex flooding system was designed to protect it.

Art, from the Renaissance to the late 20th century

Another of the city’s great treasures is the 19th-century Palais des Beaux Arts, second only to the Louvre. Housing some 2,000 paintings, it boasts numerous works by Flemish artists such as Rubens and Van Dyck, as well as Donatello’s Herod, Goya’s The Young and the Old, Gustave Courbet’s Afternoon in Ornans (the first great Realist painting), a collection of models of fortified towns by Vauban, and France’s second largest archive of drawings, including thirty by Raphaël. Also in the city centre, L'Hospice Comtesse houses more paintings by Flemish artists, while the Museum of Modern Art is set in a large sculpture park on the outskirts of the city and boasts a collection of works by, among others, Braque, Picasso, Modigliani, Miró, Masson, Klee and Kadinsky.

Bistros and brasseries

If food is your passion, you will be spoiled for choice when it comes to places to eat: as well as being the capital of French Flanders (you may notice that the Lillois sprinkle their speech with words of Chti, a French-Flemish patois), Lille is the gastronomic capital of northern France.

Many traditional dishes have clear Flemish influences, such as carbonnade flamande (beef stewed in beer), coq à la bière, waterzooi (a creamy fish stew flavoured with white wine and herbs), andouillettes (pork sausages), hochepot (hotpot), veau flamande (veal braised with dried fruits) and tarte aux maroilles (cheese tart). There are eateries to suit all occasions and tastes, from traditional brasseries (estaminets) to Michelin-starred restaurants such as the superb, Art Deco-style A L’Huitrière, which specialises in fish and seafood.

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