Although we only spent a little over one day in France, on our way to England from Belgium, it was a memorable experience. Part of the reason we stopped in Lille is because my great-grandmother was born near there before emigrating to the United States with my great-grandfather after the war. When I saw how easy it was to get there, I knew we needed to visit. Because of this family heritage and my many years of French, I’ve always been dying to go to France, and we didn’t have time to go to Paris, so Lille seemed perfect.
Well, after the charm of Belgium, Lille was kind of shocking, as it’s not a charmingly preserved medieval town like Bruges, but sometimes a dirty, modern city (this was not helped by our truly terrible hotel room). There is certainly charm to be found, in the beautiful main square and the old cathedrals, but what we enjoyed the most was, not surprisingly, the French food. Lille is right on the border of Belgium, meaning it was easy to find my favorite Belgian beer (still can’t get enough of Kasteel Donker), and their food is also influenced by this region. The crepes were true French crepes, and the main meal we had, one dinner, was completely perfect. My goat cheese pasta was the hit of the table, although E’s sausages could certainly hold their own.
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Great post! We only stopped over in Paris between Belgium and England but it gave us a taste of the country. It’s so wonderful when you’ve got a connection to a city – and the meals you had look incredible 🙂
It must have been wonderful to stop in Paris! I loved our taste of France and can’t wait to go back! I’d love to go to Paris and to see most of the countryside. What did you think of Paris? I’ve heard people either completely love it or hate it! And from our brief experience I would say that French food lives up to its expectations!!
I adored France when I lived there but never made it to Lille. Nutella crepes are my absolute favourite!! All your pictures are so beautiful!
Thank you so much for stopping by! And seriously, I LOVED those Nutella ones too! Nothing like a crepe in France 🙂 that’s awesome that you lived there!
Oh how I love crepes… those pictures have me drooling!
Crepes in France are the best 🙂 (I can now back this up with personal experience haha)
I haven’t been to Lille but I have been to Strausberg and Paris and the food was somewhat mediocre and the city dirty, but would I go back… Hell yeah 🙂 Nice post
I always found Lille really dirty, especially after cute and clean Belgium (although I had just come from China so it wasn’t SO bad haha). I’ve heard that France in general is dirty! The food we had was stellar, though. Too bad about the food in Paris and Strausberg!!!
I mean *also not *always ha.
Omg, I don’t intend on visiting China anytime soon, I need to get over the fear that I may not eat what I think I’m eating and whether the food and city is clean enough (OCD much *sigh*) lol
Haha yes I struggled with that too. I felt okay about that stuff in China, though, more so than in Cambodia or Peru! Beijing especially feels more clean depending on where you are in the city! Except for the smog haha…