Lille: A Day-Trip to France

A few weeks ago a couple in Church told me they were going to be driving to Northern France so that the husband could defend his thesis at the University of Lille.  Would I like to come along, they asked.  Actually, there's not much I'd rather do than go to France for the day!

The city of Lille is just over the Belgian border, about a three to four hour drive from the Dutch province of Noord-Holland.  The architecture has a strong Flemish character to it, and you can buy Flemish bread in the bakeries, but otherwise you feel solidly in France.  I speak French much better than I speak Dutch, which isn't saying much!  Actually, during the last couple weeks I've finally worked up the courage to buy chocolate and stroopwafels in Dutch, and I even spoke to a librarian at the Royal Library in Den Haag in Dutch, but if you were to hear how simplistic these sentences were, you would agree with me that my Dutch is pathetic!  I'm not fluent in French, but at least I don't have to continually revert to English after beginning a conversation!

My friends dropped me off near the main town square--the Grand Place--and my day of eating French pastries, visiting a French museum, and trekking across the city to visit French churches began.  This fabulous baroque building in front of the clock tower is the theater.  Close by I made my first stop at Paul P âtisserie.  I say "first stop" because I ended up making three stops at this delicious pastry shop during the course of the afternoon, and I'm not embarrassed to say that I usually bought more than one item each time!

The first pastry stop included a fresh baguette ...

... and a piece of tarte aux fruits rouges.  This was a wonderful creation--I think the berries had been baked into the creamy base of the tart.

Perhaps the only thing better than baguette and tart for lunch would be to eat them in the shadow of a Gothic church, like the Church of Saint-Maurice!

The facade has wonderful sculptures--although mostly restored, I think--with the church's patron saint over the main portal, and then a crucifixion group, gargoyles, angels, apostles, and prophets framed in ornate niches.

The interior was austere and dusky, except for the light coming in from the clear glass windows in the side aisles.  You could tell that we had crossed the border into France because the side altars were dedicated to the most popular French saints--St. Joan of Arc, St. Rita, and St. Th érèse of Lisieux.

From Saint-Maurice, I made my way to the Grand Place with its open square.  Right across from this statue balanced on top of a column I found a small outpost of Paul Pâtisserie!  This meant pastry run number two.

The raspberry tart was excellent, but the pistachio meringue on the right was one of the most delicious pastries I have ever eaten.  There were two green meringue cookies with pistachio-flavored buttercream sandwiched in between.

 While still eating my raspberry tart, I walked along narrow cobblestone roads lined with these elegant buildings to the Neo-Gothic Cathedral of Notre-Dame-de-la-Treille.

This is the brightly-lit nave of the cathedral.

Directly behind the high altar is a chapel enshrining the image that gives the cathedral its name--the statue of Our Lady of La Treille.  Like many statues believed to be miraculous, the Virgin of La Treille is wrapped in a long veil made from real cloth, and she and the Christ Child both wear crowns.

As I left, the midday sun was streaming through the windows and shining on to the chairs in the choir.

On my way to Lille's museum of art, I passed the eighteenth-century Jesuit Church of Saint- Étienne.  It was open, so I had to go inside for a minute.

Near the front of the church, in a place of special honor, is another image of the Madonna and Child believed to work miracles for the sick who come here on  pilgrimage.  She is called Notre-Dame de Gr âce, "Our Lady of Grace."

Housed in the Palais des Beaux-Arts, the museum occupies a prominent position on the large open square of the Place de la R épublique.  Since northern France is warmer than Holland, there were already lots of daffodils in bloom.

The museum had some nice paintings by Rubens and a wonderful collection of very expressive late medieval sculpture in wood.  I didn't give myself enough time to get through the whole collection, and I was more than a little annoyed when fifteen minutes before closing time, the guards started shutting heavy metal doors on rooms full of altarpieces and panel paintings that I still hadn't seen!

Statue standing guard over the Place de la République.

 Locked out of the museum, I went to visit three other churches before meeting my friends for a celebratory dinner in honor of the thesis defense.

 Sacré-Coeur is another Neo-Gothic church, probably from the nineteenth century.  The shape of the stacked arches, towers, stone saints, columns, and ornamented buttresses is really beautiful.

Sacré-Coeur means "Sacred Heart," and a bronze statue of Christ stands at the peak of a gable over the main entrance.  Framed against the rose window, he beckons the world to come receive the loving grace of his heart.

Saint-Michel was closed.  I waited outside hoping they would open the doors a little early for the 7:00 pm mass so I could see the interior but no luck.

My last stop was the Neo-Byzantine Church of Saint-Sauveur, which was also closed.  Then I went back to the Grand Place to wait for my friends.  It was at this point that I suddenly realized with a shock that I had not eaten a croissant yet.  "You're a glutton and a pig," I told myself.  "How can you even think about getting a croissant after the pastries you've already eaten?"  "But then again," another voice said, "How can you hold up your head knowing that you went to France and didn't eat a croissant?"  The other voice made a come back: "What will your friends think if you are greedily eating another pastry right before going out for a special dinner?"  That was a point well taken, but the pro-croissant voice still won.  I'll let you decide which voice was the angel and which was the devil on my shoulder!

While I waited, some kind of labor strike marched on the square singing.  It wouldn't really be France without labor protests!  Fortunately I had long finished my croissant by the time my friends arrived.  In fact, I would  have even had time for a pain au chocolat as well!  We went with their French family and friends to a little restaurant specializing in duck.  It was extremely difficult for me to make up my mind on the menu, but I finally decided to order roast duck with honey glaze and thyme along with fried potatoes.  The dish arrived with the sprig of thyme still glowing red on the edges and smoking.  I ate everything--even the burned thyme, and then for dessert I had French chocolate cake with whipped cream.  There wasn't much of an internal argument this time about the dessert!  It was a fabulous dinner--"magnifique!"