20240531 Friday, May 31 2024; Lille’s Palais de Beaux-Arts and Paris Gate

We took the luxury of “sleeping in” until 8am today.  Despite having air conditioning and the outside temperature being in the upper 50’s, our room temperature never dropped below 74˚F, which is pretty warm for us.  The bed is the right amount of firm and soft but it must have a waterproof undercover that leaves us feeling like we are sweating on it, so it’s almost better just to sleep on top of the Duvet.  We couldn’t keep the window open last night because for some reason, they had a concrete cutter running in the train station across the street after 10pm.  

The breakfast area was not too crowded, and had a more typical Comfort Inn breakfast which is a continental breakfast featuring all sorts of rolls, toast, croissants and breads with yogurts, cereals, some fruit, juices, coffee, tea, and hot items including sausage links and scrambled eggs.  The sausage links were decently tasty- not English bangers.  They also had automated coffee machines but unlike in England where they offered flat whites, in France they offer Long Black, which is basically an Americano with an extra shot of espresso.  The in room coffee offers Nespresso machines with pods so the French seem to appreciate coffee more than the English.  

The front desk hotel staff speak English, although it is clear one girl is much more comfortable with it than the other.  Thank goodness because despite a month of Duolingo lessons, we are not ready for French immersion.  Ben is probably at a 1 year old’s speaking level, and much beyond “Bonjour, parle vous anglais?” is stretching his skill level.  Janet’s years of high school French help her reading but her hearing impairment doesn’t help with carrying on conversations. 

Our destination for today was the Lille Palaise de Beaux-Arts, which is about a mile from our hotel. It was raining lightly, so we headed off in our raincoats.  Ben had commandeered a plastic laundry bag to protect his camera bag.  Lille seems quite walkable, although some of the cobblestone streets and sidewalks require a bit of care.  Also, there are a lot of dogs and smokers in France, so we had to watch our step and sometimes switch street sides to avoid walking through clouds of second hand smoke for a long time.  It seems like smoking is more prevalent here than back in the US.  There is also vaping, but we’re talking old fashioned light ‘em up cigarettes that dangle from fingertips dropping ashes anywhere they like.

When we arrived, just as the museum opened at 10am, there were two huge school groups trying to get in.  We were lucky to have been waved up to the front of one group by a chaperone so we could enter ahead of that mob.  

That guy's been taking that selfie forever.

The Lille Palaise de Beaux-Arts is a very nice museum that is a good size to be seen in a single day visit.  It has 3 levels.  The top floor is dedicated to paintings, which are roughly arranged by chronological era so you can progress through the ages simply by walking counterclockwise from one gallery to the next.  They had a special exhibit which was included in the normal €7 per person entry fee on Claude Monet’s time spent in nearby Vétheuil.  Earlier in his life when he was impoverished, and then a return near the end of his career when he was filthy stinking rich.  The Lille museum has its own permanent collection of Monet works, but for this special exhibition, several pieces were on loan from the Paris Musée d’Orsay to complete his works from this era.  The special exhibition had great signage with panels in English explaining the chronology of the works and things that were going in in Monet’s life, including the birth of his son, and the death of his wife, and events including the Siberian winter of 1879 when the Seine froze and ice dams combined with a sudden warming spell lead to a huge flood disaster in Vétheuil.  

Monet's early Vétheuil

Monet's brushwork is like a dance of the photons

captured in his mind's eye.

Vétheuil's ice dams and flooding disaster

The church at Vétheuil

The museum has sculptures including a Rodin (Grande Ombre- Big Shadow) and a bas relief panel by Donetello of the Feast of Herod.  

Rodin's Grande Ombre

Donetello's Feast of Herod

One of the more interesting statues was “Cupid Stung” by Idrac which won the Gran Prix de Rome 1873.  

It depicts Cupid getting stung by a bee and a rose’s thorn in a twist of irony.  From a urologist point of view, there is a revealing sculpture of Hermaphrodites, and another of Jesus getting circumcised.  

Hermaphrodite has a secret.

Jesus gets circumcised

Of course, there's Napoleon

Ben spent most of his time in the impressionists who were rebels in their day, striving to capture emotion like memories in light rather than through photorealism.  But there is plenty of other iconography and artistic expressions to wander through.  

They have a few ancient Egyptian and Greek artifacts, lots of religious artifacts from the dark ages on, and even some contemporary displays, including multimedia panels.  

Concert in an Egg

Disports painted Louis XIV's dogs for him.

The Passion of Christ in 4K Living Panels

So, what's going on under the table?

Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life...

In the basement, they have a huge room filled with relief maps of cities in the north of France.  These were scale models complete with streets, buildings, boats, vegetation and waterways.  The only thing missing were tiny people and horse carts on the streets.  

Relief Map of Lille 1870's

What's going on with this woman?

The museum’s web site had a list of “Must see highlights” which served as a template for our personal scavenger hunt, and as we wandered through the museum we check them all off except for two items that were not currently on display for various reasons.  

Old Woman- Alfred Agache 1880

Symbolist reflection on the passing of time.

As we walked back to the hotel, we made a slight detour to see the Paris Gate, built by Louis XIV to commemorate his victory over the Austrians, and the 104m tall Belfrey of the city hall, which is listed as a world heritage site, but which ironically contains no bells.  It does have a viewing platform, but we passed on going up for a view.  A down pour opened up as we left the Paris Gate and headed for our hotel.  

Paris Gate by Louis XIV and The Belfry of the City Hall

We detoured through a couple indoor shopping malls in Lille to avoid the rain and found them to be vibrant, filled with high end stores and customers, unlike US malls which seem to be on their way towards extinction.  We ultimately ended up at a Burger King in a Weisfield’s mall next to the train station and our hotel where we had a late lunch/early dinner.  For some reason, the US Burger King App does not work with Europe’s Burger King outlets. 

After drying off and getting naps in at the hotel, we ventured back into the city for a casual dinner and thought we'd check out French/Flemish/Vietnamese Chinese food.  There was a small restaurant Le Peking not too far into town so we dropped in and ordered ramen and pho because we weren't too hungry after our late Burger King meal.  Neither fit what we would consider authentic Japanese Ramen or Vietnamese Pho to be.  The "ramen" had udon noodles and a broth that could have been instant ramen broth with chicken, cilantro and egg in it. 

 

What the pho?

Udon "Ramen" with chicken and cilantro

Ben's "pho" was more like a juicy beef noodle soup which was spicy hot and temperature hot as well with wide rice noodles, and beef that otherwise would have ended up in a wok for beef and broccoli.  But both were filling, and palatable.  However, when the bill came, the woman who spoke virtually no English shook her head at our credit card, even though there is a big We Accept Visa and Mastercard sticker on their front window.  Ben had to schlep out of the restaurant and walk 3 blocks to the nearest ATM to make an emergency cash advance withdrawal since he didn't have a debit card on him (that was in the hotel safe).  Fortunately, it wasn't raining, and the streets of Lille aren't too seedy in that part of town right around the main town square.  They won't be getting a very good Yelp review.

We have nothing planned for tomorrow so we'll sleep in and relax.  There are a few other museums we could check out, but if the weather is bad, we'll probably just hang out at the hotel and watch some French TV while we repack our suitcases for the move to Paris.

20240530 Thursday, May 30, 2024 Good Bye England, Bienvenue France

We got an early start to pack up everything for train travel and had breakfast in the hotel.  We opted to take an Uber instead of public transport, and it was the best spent £15 because we had paid significantly more than that yesterday getting to the British Museum and back.  The Uber was a Prius, but it was just able to fit both of our small suit cases and the one large suitcase in its boot.  We ended up with our backpacks in our laps, but it was only about a 25 minute trip to the St. Pancras train station in London.  After we arrived we discovered that we had to wait until 9:30am to be able to go through customs and immigration, so we had a seat in the station and did some Duolingo French lessons.  

Once we were allowed to enter the customs and immigration line, things went fairly quickly.  They did x-ray our bags like TSA airport screening, but they let you keep any liquids, and Ben didn’t have to remove his laptop from his backpack.  We then went through both UK and French passport controls and then entered a second waiting area near the boarding platforms.  When our train arrived, they opened up the long ramp leading to the train and wheeled our luggage all the way back to car 12.  We were some of the first ones to arrive so there was plenty of room in the luggage rack so we could keep them all together and secured with a cable lock.  Most people didn’t bother with securing their bags.  

"Diner Car" - Just a snack bar

Automatic doors between cars

For our trip from London to Lille, we were booked standard class, which was very much like economy class airline seats.  Pretty tight for leg room but the seats are only 2 abreast instead of 3.  Half the seats face one direction in the car, and the other half face the opposite.  We ended up facing rearwards the whole trip.  The car was pretty full, and there were a fair number of children and infants in the car.  It was a quick trip which included a time zone change because France is an hour ahead of London time.  Although they advertise Wifi on the trains, there was zero effective connectivity.  There were no USB outlets- just 240V UK and EU standard AC outlets under the seats in a nearly impossible place to access or see.

There are several tunnels that the train goes in and out of, so it was hard to notice when we entered and exited the Chunnel.  The train does travel fast- 250 kmph or 155 mph.  The train is surprisingly smooth and quiet, aside from the children and infants.  It is quieter than a 757.  One odd thing was you still had air pressure changes that caused ear popping as the train entered and exited tunnels.  The acceleration and braking was generally pretty gentle.  It really is a shame the US doesn’t have similar train service up and down the West coast or between the coasts.  

We popped off the train at its first stop, which was at Lille.  The same train was to continue on to Amsterdam making a couple of other stops en route.

The Novotel Suites Gare Lille Europe is literally just across the street from the train station, so it was easy to get our luggage to the hotel.  We arrived at 1:45PM and our room was already available for us to check directly into.  The room was the largest of any on this trip but it did have an odd sort of lay out because the toilet was near the front door in it’s own little cubby with a tiny sink, while the bathtub, larger sink, and shower were around the corner.  There were several small closets and a separate desk with chairs and a small sofa as well.  We should be pretty comfortable space wise.  The room was quite warm when we arrived. It is on the top floor of the building (11th floor) so maybe it gets more thermal load.  We had to open the window and run the AC to get it down to the mid 70’s.  

Quirky decor

Tub/Shower/Sink room

Separate toilet/mini sink room

An actual rolling desk

We went for a walk in the afternoon around central old Lille, which is a charming European city with narrow cobble stone streets lined with shops and restaurants with a central square lined by historical buildings.  The one with the most character was the Old Stock Exchange, which was made up of 24 plots around a central courtyard.  Interestingly enough, the courtyard is filled with book sellers, even in this age of the Internet.  There is a golden statue of Mercury atop the bell tower. 

The unnamed "Goddess" of the 1792 siege of Lille

Museum like exhibits in the Lille Cathedral

Shocking modern facade of the Lille Cathedral

So many tempting baked goods

Driving tour- like Mario Kart tours in Tokyo

Ferret Bookstore- Largest bookstore in Europe

Old Lille Stock Exchange

Church of St. Maurice, Lille

Gare de Lille Flanders for local subway access

There is also another historic building on the square which used to house a ferret business (they used ferrets to hunt rabbits). In 1936, it became a book store which since became the world’s largest book store from 1992 to 1999.  It remains the largest in Europe. It seems like book stores are a rare thing in the US nowadays.  

In the center of the square is a statue of a woman with a crown whom the locals call the Goddess.  It is a memorial to the siege of 1792 when an Austrian army of 20,000 men besieged the city for 9 days and nights.  

We wandered through the English Saint-Maurice which began construction in the 15th century, and wasn’t completed until the 18th century.  It is a classic gothic European Catholic Church with lots of beautiful stained glass windows and religious iconography.  

The next Church we visited was quite a contrast.  Lille Cathedral has a bold modern facade, which is quite a unique sight.  Although the Cathedral’s construction began in 1854, it wasn’t completed until 1973.  There is a model inside the building showing a facade inspired by the Gothic style of the first half of the 13th century, but by the time it was completed, for various reasons it morphed into its present form.  In many ways it stands out because it’s not ancient.  

Officially the Lille Cathedral of Our Lady of Treille

After this statue which was associated with miracles in the dark ages.

The Assassination of Charles the Good

Modern stained glass facade

The round stained glass window high on the facade is of a very modern abstract pattern, while the facade itself is translucent when viewed from the inside.  There are many smaller chapels around the periphery of the nave which have different themes which are explained on modern museum like display panels which point out some of the important artwork and symbolism of each chapel.  One was dedicated to all the trades and each of their patron saints- over 66 of them.  One paid homage to the assassination of Charles the Good, the Count of Flanders in the 12th century.  There is a grisly depiction of men being hacked with broadswords in the stained glass above.  He apparently took action to stop price gouging and famine by doing things like expelling the Jews from Flanders and limiting the power of an influential family in control of much of the commerce.  It wasn’t until 1882 that he was elevated to sainthood.  Nowadays, it seems like the ones who do the hacking that get the glorification.  

At the center of Lille is a huge park surrounding a pentagonal star fortress that had been started by the Spanish, but finished by Louis XIV.  It is still an active military site guarded by soldiers with very real automatic rifles, but there is a kids play park and zoo on the periphery as well as miles of walking and bicycling pathways.  The arrangement of the fortress and satellite fortifications create quite a maze work around the central fortress.  There is also a river that forms a moat around the entire complex.  

As we headed back to the hotel, we stopped and had dinner in a tiny restaurant appropriately called La Petite Table which specialized in the local cuisine which is heavily influenced by the Flemish.  Interestingly, one very popular local dish is a spin-off of Welsh rabbit, which everyone knows had no rabbit in it.  In Wales, it is like a cheese sandwich drenched with a cheddar cheese sauce.  In Lille, it takes the form of a casserole dish plated with bread at the bottom, a thin layer of ham, a generous covering of a thick cheesy sauce of cheddar cheese, beer and mustard, all topped with a fried egg.  The other favorite regional dish is called Carbonade Flamande, which is a Flemish beef stew made with beer, gingerbread and sugar.  It actually wasn’ t all that sweet.  Just a hint of sweetness and a lot of savory rich beefy goodness.  It could possibly be mistaken for the filling of some of the steak and ale pies they serve across the ditch to the north.  Both regional favorites are served with French Fries, of course.  Ben had a regional appetizer Potjevleesch, which is a terrine of cold rabbit, pork and chicken in aspic served with bread and salad, which was very tasty.  

Waffle and cream dessert

Flemish Beef Stew

Welsh Complet

La Petite Table

Tomorrow we will make our way to the Lille Palais de Beaux-Arts, which is said to be one of the best general interest museums in France.