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To Lille
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Lille, France
Lille in France with e-travelguide.info
Welcome To the e-travelguide to Hotels, guest houses and attractions in Lille.
Make the most of your time in Lille, use the information provided on this web site by clicking on the links above to plan your visit.
Lille stands at the crossroads between Paris, Brussels and London and has been transformed into something of a popular cultural capital in recent years. It is located in the northern part of France, near to the borders with Belgium and the Netherlands and is the administrative capital of the Nord-Pays-de-Calais division. Thanks to the introduction of high-speed trains in the 1990s Lille is within an hour and a half of London, an hour of Paris and half an hour of Brussels.
The fourth largest metropolitan area of France with more than one million inhabitants, Lille was designated as a European Capital City of Culture in 2004 alongside Italian city Genoa. This has only served to help its growing tourism sector and its development from an industrial-based economy into a service-based one. In fact, the arrival of the TGV link, the Eurostar and the Euralille district in the early-1990s set these wheels in motion and the subsequent benefits have been enormous.
The city’s role as a capital city of culture brought about a number of changes and revamps. For example, a total of 12 former industrial buildings were transformed into Maisons Folie which are used as meeting places for artists, associations and citizens to create and exchange ideas.
Lille is full of gardens, museums, monuments and other cultural highlights. The tourist office is a particularly striking building, housed in the 1453-built Palais Rihour. The Grand Place acts as a central hub of activity and is home to a number of historic buildings and sights; among them is the fine Vieille Bourse monument which brings together 24 identical 17th century town houses. Other places worth a visit nearby include the goddess statue which commemorates the city’s resistance to the Austrian siege in 1792, the impressive Opera House, the uniform 17th century Beauregard Row houses, the Notre-Dame de la Treille Cathedral, the 17th-century-built fort and the Old Paris Gate.
The Citadel Park and zoo proves a popular place to visit in the city and is full of animals and other wildlife. Other gardens include the English style Vauban Garden and the Botanical Garden and tropical greenhouse. Meanwhile, museums also abound; most notable is the Fine Arts Museum, the Hospice Comtesse Museum, Charles de Gaulle’s birthplace and Museum and the Museum of Natural History.
When visiting the city you would do well to make the most of some of the regional cuisine on offer, much of which is rural in its roots and with Flemish and French origins. Three dishes in particular are common to the city; they are the Carbonnade Flamande, the Waterzoï and the Potjevleesch. Rabbit and prunes, muscles and chips and local beers are also worth a try, while the Vieux Lille cheese (or Lille Stinker) and the P’tits Quinquins sweets provide other fun options.