Sunday
The main train station, Lille Europe, had some nice indoor and outdoor art.
I went back out after lunch to explore the fort area but couldn’t see much. Instead, I headed back to the center, enjoying the Vieille Bourse interior and some small bits of street art scattered about.
Monday
The St. Maurice Catholic Church was free to enter (as were most cathedrals in Lille) and rewarded us with lots of beautiful stained glass and a unique nativity scene on the main stage.
We continued on to the Beffroi de Lille, a UNESCO world heritage site and the tallest municipal building in France at 104 meters (~350 feet). Despite it’s height we actually walked right past it when we got to the Porte de Paris and thought we missed it!
By the time we headed back to our apartment to warm up, the austere Notre Dame was finally open. Lots of stained glass with an interesting mix of old and new styles.
The Palais des Beaux-Arts museum was discounted after 4:30pm so we showed up just in time to get a cheaper ticket and still had 90 minutes to explore the museum. The galleries had a non-traditional layout and the lights were being worked on so some of the upstairs galleries were very dim. This museum has a collection that includes a fair number of massive paintings with old and new works mixed together, along with examples from well known artists that we hadn’t seen displayed before. Definitely worth going, especially after 4:30pm.
Tuesday
On our last day we noticed this cool sculpture, ‘Romy,’ by the smaller train station.
