Lille - Day 2

The next day, of course, it rained. Nonetheless, intrepid explorers that we are, we decided to go out and See The Sights. Well, see Roubaix, anyway. Roubaix is part of the Lille Metropolitan area, and whilst a town in its own right, acts a bit like a suburb of Lille itself. (I can't imagine living there and never visiting the big city, though I'm sure there are those that do.) It's on a metro line from Lille, so off we went.

It's not the prettiest town in the world. Not without its charms, to be sure - though the cafe we stopped in wasn't really one of them. Possibly the only place left in France where people are allowed to smoke inside (fine enforcement clearly isn't a priority in Roubaix), and run by a very nice woman who nonetheless looked like a meth addict. Still, they served coffee, which was all we needed. They even served it twice, when I knocked the first lot all over the table, the floor, and myself. Who knew there was so much liquid in an expresso?

The Mairie is a very imposing building, looming above the square where the metro stops

We walked, in the rain, around Roubaix. Roubaix is famous for its art galleries and textile heritage, and it is the site of not one, but two outlet villages for buying designer clothes cheaply. It also has a museum in the site of an old workers' swimming pool - water has been left in - which has a glorious stained glass window.

You can see it from the outside here - but sadly, it was closed when we went, so no photos from the inside. (People finding this post through Google, you may wish to note that La Piscine museum in Roubaix is only open in the afternoon.) We'll go back one day...

The sticky labels left by visitors outside formed a pretty collage:

This was spray painted onto a wall near the museum, and appears to be the last photo I took that day. This is presumably because the rain got much worse as the day went on.

We did call in at the outlet village to see if there was anything we wanted to buy - aside from a new pair of jeans that I needed, there wasn't. Disappointing. The rain was getting heavier at this point, so we decided to call it a day and get the tram back to Lille for lunch.

By the time we arrived in Lille, the rain was horrendous. We walked around getting soaked while we found somewhere to eat - we ended up at the lovely Arriere Pays, which serve a huge variety of tartines (open-faced sandwiches, I think they might be called elsewhere), and salted-butter caramel crepes. Which were awesome. Paul, in a fit of insanity, decided to try the local liqueur, genievre. There is a reason that this particular drink hasn't achieved national or international success; it's fucking horrendous. Tastes like anti-freeze, on a good day. I'm unconvinced that you could mix it with anything that would disguise the horror that is this drink. Don't be fooled by its harmless appearance, it is Evil Incarnate.

Having managed to survive the horror, we went back to the hotel to drink champagne and wait for the rain to stop.

The rain, being Lille, steadfastly refused to stop. So we bravely set out, regardless. We sheltered in The Northern Ferret (Le Furet du Nord, I think it sounds better in English) and bought a couple of DVDs and a notebook. We also saw some fine examples of Northern cookbooks (30 ways to cook with carambars, 30 recipes featuring biscuits...)

Following this, we traipsed through the rain til we found somewhere for dinner. It was an estaminet, a traditional Northern French/Belgian cafe, basically, which definitely played up the traditional aspect. It served all sorts of iconic Northern French food, mostly featuring marouilles, beer, or a combination of the two. I had Welsh, which is cheese on toast with beer, cheese and cream. And chips, obviously. (I managed about a quarter of it before feeling like I might die.) Paul had carbonnade, which is meat in a beer stew sauce thing (which was much nicer than my cheesey heart-attack on a plate).

It is, however, in desserts that the North really came into its own. Despite the rain, we both decided on icecreams - a unique combination of speculoos/chicoree/condensed milk flavours for me, and a similarly unusual licorice/carambar/glacier mint (Betisse de Cambrai) mix for Paul (his came with sweeties on top. Still slightly jealous.) There was a pleasing variety of speculoos flavoured options - not only speculoos icecream (which haagen daas also sell, by the way - awesome in a box), but speculoos mousse, and speculoos creme brulee (which I very, very nearly went for). There is also a speculoos flavoured liqueur, which in my mind is sort of like speculoos flavoured baileys - how amazing would that be? You can apparently buy it online. (Speculoos, for those foreign people who haven't had the pleasure, is originally a biscuit - kind of a mix between ginger and cinnamon flavoured. It is brilliant. Often served with coffees here. I think it's Belgian.)

After this, we rolled back to the hotel, through the rain that hadn't let up at all. My clothes still hadn't dried by the time we left Lille the next day.

Day 3 continues in another post...

Conflans and Herblay

Yesterday, we went on An Adventure.

Well, ok, a daytrip. But it was to somewhere new, and it was lovely. I was extra-sold on the idea of bungee-jumping ponies, which we sadly missed because they weren't around when we arrived in town. (For all those who may be about to ask me if it's not more likely that there were ponies and bungee-jumping in the same town, rather than so closely linked, hush. You are not to ruin my dreams.)

Conflans is a small town about 45 minutes outside the centre of Paris. The train leaves from St Lazare, and costs about €4.50 each way, ish. There are two stations - we went to the more central one, Conflans-St Honorine but there is apparently another that you may wish to explore.

From the station, which wins a prize for establishments with the most stereotypical outside-a-train-station names (see photo), we walked into town and found the mairie.

Prize-winners:




Mairie:


We then followed the mutant feet up the hill. The very steep hill, I should emphasise.


Having wondered if I might die on the way, I was surprised to arrive at the musee de la batellerie (which is something to do with boats). It was closed, being lunchtime, obviously, but there was a giant boat sticking out of the wall to let you know where you were.



The museum used to be a priory, and the grounds of the priory are now a very pretty public park. The building itself is seriously run down and in need of repairs, though it was clearly lovely when it was built.



















From there, we went to the church (which was opposite, naturally - don't you love how French towns are laid out the same?)

The church, similarly, was in need of repair. As it was actually covered in scaffolding, one can assume that it's a more desperate case... Despite a promising exterior (underneath the scaffolding) and a long history, the inside was a bit disappointingly bare. The Eglise Saint-Maclou was built in the 11th century, and after the Revolution, it was rededicated to Sainte Honorine, whose relics were moved in, in about 1800. (The website tells me that Saints Samson and Margeurite also have relics in the building. I wonder if it's a timeshare type deal.) The age explains the smallness, I guess - it just struck me as a bit bare. A couple of nice paintings and stained glass windows, but that's about it. Perhaps it will look better once the refurb is complete.











The other major historical monument is the Tour Montjoie. Built by Matthew de Beaumont in the 11th century, this 15m tall stone donjon replaced the original wooden version. It's understandably somewhat weathered now, but it's remarkably well-preserved given its age, apparently. (A restoration project in 1979-1980 probably didn't hurt.)









From there, we walked down through the old town to the port.









Conflans is a town with a long maritime history (can you call it that if it's rivers?) and is currently hosting an outdoor photography exhibition showing boats through the ages. It's also home to possibly France's biggest collection of house-boats. Many of these have clearly not been moved in decades, and probably couldn't now if you wanted them to. Laundry dries in the sunshine, plants grow on boat-top gardens, mountains and mountains of junk grow over time. These are the most settled theoretically-mobile homes I've ever seen.













Jacques is a boat that has been specially refurbed by one of the local neighbourhood organisations (I think) - doesn't he look all smart?



After this, we walked along the Seine towards Herblay. Two things amused me - the number of beautiful flowers, and the variety of mailboxes we found. Most of the permenantly moored boats had their own special green boxes, like in this picture:


Except this guy, who has the only US mailbox I've ever seen:


For comparison, normal French mailboxes in towns look like:



Flowers:











We stopped for lunch along the way, at a really friendly little place called Les Gourmandises, which does a fabulous 3 course menu for €20. The most important part of this was, of course, dessert:









After lunch, we continued our way along the riverside to Herblay. The bus service round these parts is a little erratic:


I did think, when we finally arrived at the edge of Herblay, that the council might want to work on their welcome message:


The flowers were better though, and in actual pots and everything:





We carried on walking alongside the river, large parts of which were closed to traffic, so it was lovely and quiet.

We saw the river:


Fishermen:


Ducks:


A home for tiny waterside gnomes:


And then we were in the middle of town. Sort of. One of the interesting things about Herblay (which I wasn't allowed to go on, because it was late by this point, but I'm promised we can go back) is that it still runs a ferry across the river to an island where plants for Paris' public gardens are... incubated? Whatever the plant-version is. And, at weekends, people can use the ferry, for free, as part of some local rights of passage that have existed since medieval times. I want to exercise my medieval rights!



The book told us of a shortcut to the church in Herblay, from which one can apparently get a brilliant view of the river sweeping majestically below you. Note that, if you are doing this too, Impasse du Val is so called for a reason, and that walking *past* an Impasse is not the same as walking *up* it.

Having retraced our steps, we found the actual place we should have turned off a little further up the hill. The book neglected to mention how steep the winding steps were to get up to the church, so I shall kindly do that for you. They are, quite. (Not as bad as the first hill in Conflans, though, I think.)





When we arrived, panting and sweaty (ok, just me, whatever) at the top of the hill, I was a little surprised to find ourselves in the middle of a wedding party. Trying to avoid their wedding pictures, we snuck around the edge of the churchyard, saw a pretty graveyard, but I couldn't see any views I'd describe as majestic. Perhaps I'm spoilt. The following was the best of the bunch:







We made our way back down the hill to the train station, where they had a big blue sign telling us where we were, and some teeny bright orange plants:




From Herblay, we got the train back to Saint Lazare, and home. My legs were sore this morning, but I am looking forward to going back again over the summer.