Lille

I was the first up at 0900, the others were luxuriating in seldom indulged sleep-ins. I chatted with C across a breakfast of cereal, bread and tea. As a result of the late start, we had a lunch of serrano ham, chorizo and sauccisson before touring. This time we decided to drive down to Lille, just across the border in France. It was another country, but there would be no border controls. Or so I hoped, because I realised I had not taken along my passport after we had been on the road.

We had a look at the Lille Europa station, one of the endpoints of the Eurostar. It was a separate station from the original Lille Flanders. Nothing special about the Eurostar train except perhaps the sleek and slender profile.

Outside the station, these fantastic floral sculptures lent a splash of colour to a dull day.

Lille was having an exhibition about Shanghai, its sister city, and there were pillars and signs in Chinese in the streets, which no doubt looked exotic to the Europeans.

In the Grande Place they had errected an entire elaborate Chinese tea house.

This is the chamber of commerce. I'm sure they must have to try harder because unemployment in this northern region of France remains stubbornly high.

As Lille was the 2004 European Capital of Culture, there was an exhibition on Rubens at the gallery. It was pricey, but there many impressive paintings on show. The crowd was heavy due to the holiday weekend and the interest in the exhibition.

At the rear of the gallery, I spotted this happenstance trompe l'œil caused by the reflection of the gallery on the glass front of the adjacent building.

By this time dusk had fallen which enabled me to take this lovely picture of the tea house with rather modern light decorations.


We had a late dinner at a regional specialties restaurant. I enjoyed my fillet mignon of pork in Roquefort sauce. Then we did some shopping at a Carrefour because Sunday and Monday would be public holidays. I bought some soap for Cuba. (Reason: small reduction in backpack weight coming from Australia.)


On the way back we stopped to look in at Kortrijk. There was a fun fair in progress. We had nightcaps in a cafe around midnight; mine was a mokka.


But when we arrived home nobody wanted to sleep yet so we watched Bend It Like Beckham with P's wall projection system. We finally got to bed around 0230.