World City Guide

Key Attractions

Palais des Beaux-Arts (Fine Arts Museum)
Widely acclaimed as France’s second best museum after Le Louvre, the Palais des Beaux Arts, housed in a Belle Epoque palace right in the city centre, has been attracting great crowds after an extensive and lengthy renovation. The impressive collection, which includes paintings by many such as Donatello, Raphael, Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, El Greco, David and Toulouse-Lautrec, is now even better displayed, and makes for a truly delightful visit.

Place de la République
Tel: (03) 20 06 78 00.
Website: www.mairie-lille.fr

La Vieille Ville (The Old Town)
Cobblestoned streets and superb old Flemish town houses (now home to exclusive boutiques) make for a pleasant stroll in a part of Lille that has barely changed in centuries. Particularly lively on Sundays, when the market takes place. Sit at a café and watch life go by. The cathedral, nearby, has a modern façade and gothic interiors. The impressive stations of the cross inside are by Brazilian painter Sergio Ferro.

Centre Commercial Euralille (Euralille Shopping Centre)
Inaugurated in 1994, this complex, built between the Eurostar and Lille Flandres stations by famous town planner Rem Koolhaas, is well worth checking out. It includes over 120 shops, several restaurants and a hypermarket over two levels.

Between Lille Europe and Lille Flandres stations
Tel: (03) 20 14 52 20.
Website: www.euralille.com

Place Général de Gaulle (aka Grand’ Place)
Lille’s main square is now an attractive pedestrian area overlooked by the Voix du Nord building (home of the North's leading newspaper, once the journal of the French Resistance in WW2). La Vieille Bourse (the Old Exchange), a centre where Flemish merchants traded their famous high-quality cloth, is on the left. The Column commemorates the siege of Lille by the Austrians in 1792.

Maison Natale Charles de Gaulle (Général de Gaulle Birthplace and Museum)
Lille’s most famous son, the Général de Gaulle, rose to fame as leader of the Free French forces whilst in exile in London during World War 2. After a period in the political wilderness, he became President of France in the 1950s - when he brought stability to a divided country which was struggling to adjust to the postwar situation, particularly whether to give independence to France's north African colony of Algeria. Visit the house where he was born on November 22, 1890.

9 rue Princesse
Tel: (03) 28 38 12 05.
Website: www.maison-natale-degaulle.org