| | | A Stroll Through Old Lille Par Emmanuel Tresmontant
Place Rihour This is the perfect place to start your stroll, as the Palais Rihour – built between 1454 and 1473 by Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy – now houses the Tourist Office. Everything about this building epitomises the Gothic style: the beautiful mullioned windows, the octagonal stair turret, the first-floor guard room with its slender ogival vaults and the chapel, otherwise known as the Room of the Conclave. From here, head straight down a pedestrian lane towards Place du Général-de-Gaulle. Everyone in Lille calls this simply the “Grand-Place” and it is a popular meeting place for the Lillois so the terrace cafés around the square are always packed. The sumptuous baroque Vieille Bourse (Old Exchange) survives as a reminder that this square was dedicated to commerce from the Middle Ages. Originally built in the seventeenth century and rebuilt in 1995, the Bourse is typical of the Lille style of architecture. Walking around it, you will see that it is made up of 24 separate chambers of commerce, each decorated with magnificently carved sculptures of fruit and garlands. There are florists and second-hand bookseller stalls in the inner courtyard arcades, where you can browse for a rare edition or an armful of freshly cut tulips. This is also where chess players meet and, on Sunday mornings, tango dancers too. La Rue Esquermoise Lined by seventeenth and eighteenth-century houses, this street leads north off the Grand-Place. At 25-27, you will find Pâtisserie Meert, the oldest Lille confectioner (founded in 1761). Mirrors, arabesques and gilded reliefs, balconies carved like lace ... the operatic decor dates from 1839 and it is impossible to visit without trying the famous waffles, the house speciality. Flavoured with vanilla from Madagascar, the recipe was perfected in 1849 and is renowned the world over, even Charles de Gaulle had a particular passion for them.  Place du Général-de-Gaulle © G. Rouzeau / ViaMichelinLa Rue du Curé Saint-Etienne Immediately to the right, this street takes you to an excellent cheesemonger shop – Philippe Olivier – where you can discover the excellent cheeses of the Nord, such as ‘maroilles’ cured in brine, old ‘mimolette’, pungent and crumbly aged gouda, ‘cats mountain’ cheese made by Trappist monks, log-shaped ‘rollot’ and ‘tomme de Cambrai’ washed in beer. La Rue de la Grande-Chaussée Having followed Rue Lepelletier, turn into La Rue de la Grande-Chaussée where you can admire a superb seventeenth-century house, built of limestone with an ochre limewash – not to mention numerous up-market boutiques.  Rue de la Monnaie © G. Rouzeau / ViaMichelinLa Rue des Chats-Bossus Here you will find Lille’s most celebrated fishmonger – L'Huîtrière – whose Art Deco facade is decorated with stained glass. Inside, the sumptuous marine mosaics are the work of Breton artist, Mathurin Méheut. L'Huîtrière is also one of Lille’s best gastronomic restaurants. Lille has its name from when there were canals instead of streets and the town was known as the Island (L’Isle) of Flanders. If you pass through the narrow Passage de la Treille from Place Louise-de-Bettignies, you will see the remains of several old wooden bridges, which once crossed these canals, still surviving at the rear of some of the houses. La Rue de la Monnaie This street – probably the most beautiful in old Lille – was named after the Hôtel de la Monnaie, built in 1685 as the royal treasury. The seventeenth and eighteenth-century brick houses form a perfect Flemish tableau. The shops and atmosphere of this historic quarter have a magnetic charm, which is why people in Lille come here simply to stroll.  L'Hospice Comtesse © G. Rouzeau / ViaMichelinL'Hospice Comtesse With its historic Salle des Malades (Hospital Ward), its chapel and its vaulted halls, the Hospice Comtesse, founded in 1237 by the Countess Jeanne de Flandre, takes you straight back to the Middle Ages. After a fire in 1468, the splendid hospice was rebuilt and expanded in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Its collections of Flemish paintings and sculpture, furnishings, majolica and silverware, and its kitchen covered in ancient ceramic tiles make this a good place to discover the local decorative arts. La Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-la-Treille After going down rue Au-péterinck, lined with 18th century weavers’ houses, head for the amazing Cathédrale-Notre-Dame-de-la-Treille. This cathedral, which contains a wonderful 13th century statue of the Virgin, was begun in 1854 but the façade was not completed until 1999, by Lille architect Pierre-Louis Carlier. His spectacular idea is based on a technical feat: light penetrates into the nave through a veil of translucent marble, stretched over the entire missing façade by steel cables. At the centre of this veil, a large rose window by the painter Kijno evokes the transition from death to resurrection by means of luminescent materials. Also of note, the basement houses a museum of contemporary religious art, containing works by Andy Warhol and Sergio Ferro. A different view of Lille: the Wazemmes quarterLille is not just famous for its architectural heritage but also for the festive atmosphere of the Wazemmes quarter. This nineteenth century working-class district, dominated by textile works, was quite separate from Lille until around 1860. The heart of Wazemmes is its market, especially on a Sunday, when the square called La Place de la Nouvelle Aventure, along with the nearby red-brick market halls, brim over with products from all over the world: foodstuffs, clothes and even live animals. The soul of Wazemmes is a blend of Flemish high spirits, of beer and of the sound of accordion. | 
Benoît Bernard, a true Northener On the occasion of the publication of the Michelin Guide 2006, we decided to find out more about France's new star-rated chefs. After Tateru Yoshino and Pierre Gagnaire, we went to meet the new rising star of the Lille region (north of France), "the ogre" Benoît Bernard. Three years after taking over La Laiterie in Lambersart, he has just been awarded his first star. | 
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