Lille with David and Dianne

After taking Saturday to recover from Ireland, we went to Lille on the Eurostar. We got a great deal through Eurostar on the Hotel Carlton, which was right on the main square. The afternoon was spent exploring the town and taking a bus tour to see the sights - I kept wanting to jump out and spend more time at each one...

The view out our hotel window toward the Opera House

Sarah in the main square of Lille

We caught the fully-automated subway through to the Palais des Beaux-Arts (literally the palace of beautiful arts), which apparently has the second largest collection in France (after the Louvre). The architecture was beautiful, and the artwork matched the setting.

Stephen outside the Palais des Beaux-Arts

Lille was a very pretty town, and we thoroughly enjoyed our time there. It is very much part of France, too, with all of the stylish shopping and high quality food that goes along with it - in fact it would almost be worth taking a trip to Lille for that alone. Not only that, but it is really close the the Belgian border, so they have a lot of the Belgian beers in the cafes (although the shops were all closed on Sunday, which is true of all of France)