Day 1 12/1/08 - France

London -> Lille

Highlight

• It was a relatively late start. We had a smooth ride on the Eurostar. Managed to arrive at our hotel and get out by about 12pm
• Checked out Euralille for a bit. Got myself some North Face winter shoes (60) for Iceland.
• Checked out a few games store before catching the confusing Metro to the <> Market.
• Forgot about needing coins for the ticket machine so had to go to ticket office to get Metro ticket. Luckily here there are no lines and the tickets are cheap.
• Did a bit of shopping at Galeries Lafayette while waiting for the tourist office to open. (yup the 2 hour lunch break).
• Unfortunately Slokky was doing the “I am anxious we’re going to be late, so let’s rush everything” thing so I couldn’t stop to look at anything I want, and we had to go to the tourist office, which is situated in the Palais Rihour. The Palais is kinda unremarkable, especially after all the huge sites we’ve seen before.
• Looked at the various other buildings on our audio guide and general wandering around - Opera, Hotel de Ville, Eglise St Maurice,Musee de l’Hospice Comtesse. The most interesting part is theCathedrale Notre Dame de la Treille, a mix of ancient and modern, which was very interesting. The abstract paintings of the ascension to the cross make a change from the usual drawings and sculptures you see. The front of the church has been newly decked out with thin marble that lets the light through and is quite cool.
• A stop to the huge Carrefour hypermart completed the day, we stocked up on our usual cheese, terrain and waffles.
• Dinner at Le Sebastopol, a 1 Michelin star restaurant. The staff was not too good at English, but we did manage to find out what we were ordering. The food was excellent, especially the exquisite desserts. Thing weren’t too fussed over, the presentation very simple, the only letdown was probably the boring meat plates.
• It was good value considering I actually got 2 glasses of wine with my dinner as well. We were truly stuffed by the end of it, so a stroll back to the hotel was much needed.
• Lille is definitely a walkable city, you can see all the major sites on foot. What was unremarkable was that there was much less to see and do than I anticipated.

Food

• huge pain au chocolate, palmier and chocolate chip bread (3)
• tarte tartin
• Dinner at Le Sebastopol:
  • little bread rolls
  • tasting plate with foie gras dumpling, cauliflower soup, steamed egg with foie gras
  • dessert plate with chestnut crème, raspberry tartlet, sugar tuile, hazelnut chocolate