Lille · FR
Lille Highlights Walk
Flemish facades, a grand square and a soaring cathedral in two easy hours.
What's the walk about?
Welcome to Lille, the warm Flemish heart of northern France, where grand squares, gilded facades and cobbled lanes wait just around every corner. This gentle loop through the old town is made for first-time visitors who want the city's very best in a single, easy stroll. In about two relaxed hours we will wander from a Gothic ducal palace to a book-lined Renaissance courtyard, past an opera house and a soaring belfry, and finish beneath a cathedral front that glows like candlelight at dusk. Comfortable shoes, an open eye for the little details carved into the stone, and a healthy appetite for a Flemish terrace are all you need. Let the beauty of Vieux Lille unfold at your own pace.
What you'll see
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1
Palais Rihour
Palace
A rare survivor of flamboyant Gothic Lille, this fifteenth century palace was raised for the powerful dukes of Burgundy and today shelters the city tourist office. Only its chapel, Gothic staircase and guardroom escaped the fires that destroyed the rest.
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2
Place Rihour
Square
A lively square of cafe terraces fronting the old palace, dominated by Lille's unusual pacifist war memorial. Unveiled in 1927, the Monument aux Morts honours the people who suffered through four years of occupation rather than glorifying victory.
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3
La Voix du Nord
Landmark Building
The Art Deco headquarters of the regional newspaper, a 1936 building in concrete dressed as a Flemish house and crowned by three gilded bronze Graces. Behind the cheerful facade lies a name born as a secret Resistance paper in occupied 1941.
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4
Grand Place (Place du Général de Gaulle)
Square
Lille's beating heart, a vast market square ringed by Flemish facades and officially named for Charles de Gaulle, who was born in the city. At its centre rises the Column of the Goddess, honouring the citizens who defied a nine day Austrian siege in 1792.
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5
Vieille Bourse
Historic Exchange
The Vieille Bourse is Lille's old stock exchange, a dazzling cluster of twenty four identical houses raised in 1653 around a single hidden courtyard. That courtyard now hums with secondhand booksellers, chess players and evening dancers, and it remains the finest Flemish Renaissance monument in the city.
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6
Place du Théâtre
Square
Place du Theatre is the grand square behind the old exchange, framed by the opera house, the soaring belfry of the Chamber of Commerce, and the handsome arcaded row called the Rang de Beauregard. It is the most theatrical open space in Lille, lined with cafe terraces and crowned by three very different silhouettes.
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7
Opéra de Lille
Opera House
The Opera de Lille is a majestic neoclassical opera house, built after fire destroyed its predecessor in 1903 and finally inaugurated in 1923. Its pediment shows Apollo surrounded by the muses, and inside an Italian style horseshoe auditorium seats well over a thousand.
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8
Chambre de Commerce Belfry
Belfry
Rising seventy six metres over the Place du Theatre, this neo Flemish belfry crowns Lille's former Chamber of Commerce. Completed in 1921, its carillon of bells rings out over the old town every day.
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9
Cathedrale Notre-Dame-de-la-Treille
Cathedral
This neo Gothic cathedral took almost a century and a half to finish, and its west front is like no other, a thin screen of translucent marble that glows amber from within at dusk. It is dedicated to Our Lady of the Treille, a medieval statue of the Virgin long credited with miracles.
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10
Hospice Comtesse
Museum
Founded in 1237 by Countess Jeanne of Flanders, the Hospice Comtesse cared for Lille's sick for almost seven hundred years before becoming a museum. Behind its gate lie a great tiled sick ward, a chapel, and a quiet Flemish courtyard in the heart of Vieux Lille.
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