Oooo white stuff falling from the sky ...

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One week it's sun and snow from a distance and the next it's in the thick of the swirly white stuff! In a particularly busy travel period of weekend trips it was up early Saturday morning and off to St Pancras for the Eurostar to Lille in France. This has to be the best invention in the world. Catch the tube to Kings Cross St Pancras, be ready 30 mins before departure, through French customs before boarding the train and an hour or so later you are walking out in the middle of town in a completely different world (with much better food).

As Astrid and I only had 2 days to make the most of our weekend in Lille we found our hotel (right near the station) to drop off the bags before heading into the heart of the old town in the driving wind and freezing rain/sleet - can't have great weather on every trip! After a quick brekkie at Le Meert, the most amazing little tea shop in Lille (did I mention it was amazing) it was off to find the tourist centre and to organise our own little tour. This meant picking up a do-it-yourself guide and wandering around in the cold, rain, sleet and little white snowy bits. I'd love to tell you all about the places we saw, but it was soooo long ago, so I'm going to leave the photo descriptions (or lack theeof) to speak for themselves.

I admit much of the weekend was trying to avoid rain/sleet, eating, drinking and freezing. On the Sunday we took refuge in the Musee del l'Hospice Comtesse to escape the driving wind (bloody freezing) and the somewhat deadness that is Lille on a Sunday (nothing is open in the morning) and came out to swirling driving snow - awesome! Then had to take refuge in the Cathedral to escape the driving snow! All in all it was a nice, quiet wander weekend, with the definite highlight of watching the Wallabies get up in the Rugby against the French (in Paris) in a bar in France ... viva la wallabies (lots of unhappy frogs!!) Bugger my lack of story, have a look at some pics and remember I'm just filling in some of those holes I left in last years travels (and working on this years!).

Jane x

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Photos

Christmas Market Wheel
every town must have one

La rue des Brigittines
A hidden alley, which is an old monastry

Palais Rihour
Also known as the tourism office ...

Musée de l'Hospice Comtesse
A museum of Flemish Art in a fabulous old building