Walking in Lille

Why were we in Lille? It had been an old, neglected town of France until twenty years ago but now it was a booming tourist place. How had that happened? We were here to explore the town, the central market and its many pedestrianised streets, to understand the Urban Heritage strategy that the French town had adopted but also to simply walk the streets and enjoy ourselves.

The Government had taken a major decision to make Lille the crossroads of high-speed trains. This decision had turned around the economy of the place. The government had simultaneously begun to carry out architectural restoration of buildings in the town. Lille started to become attractive to investors as well as tourists.

What was the route we took? We had arrived at the Gare de Lille Europe – the railway station built in 1993 connecting UK, Belgium and the Netherlands. From here, we walked through the Place de l’Europe and the Allee de St-Louis du Senegal towards the Place de la Gare. Our first stop had been the Napoleon café, where we had our first coffee in Lille. After that, we had walked to the Central Market, a square that has overlooking it, the Opera and the Vieille Bourse. From here, there are many streets lined with shops which are completely pedestrianised.

We looked at the architectural facades – some French and some Dutch, we looked at the Cobblestoned streets, we looked at the old-style signage that most of the shops carried. There were no hoardings in this heritage town. Sometimes, we stopped, only to look carefully at a street lamp that accentuated a street corner.

There were between the heritage houses, a few facades that were contemporary, that used large panels of glass and yet the detailing bringing in an elegance that gave the modern shops a place here amidst heritage and old-world charm. In some streets, there were infills, houses that had been constructed anew with bricks and plasterwork for cornices – a few that seemed more authentic than others.

The afternoon was spent sitting outside at a coffeeshop – it was cappuchino with waffles for some and pancakes for others. A heritage tourist town needed places like these and one saw these cafes in Lille as elsewhere in other tourist towns in Europe.

This journey through a town with so many pedestrianised streets made us think about what the 'process of pedestrianisation' had been for Lille. How long does it take for this change to happen? How does one bring about this change? Are there hindrances along the way? How do shopowners collaborate with the government in making the town pedestrian-friendly and tourist-friendly? What are the regulations that the local municipality designs and enforces for better traffic management? These were some questions that come to mind, that make me think about how difficult pedestrianisation is in India. (I discuss here about The why's and how's of Pedestrianising Gandhi Bazaar)

It made us think about why the concern for heritage in our own countries is so little. Perhaps, we do not understand how 'everyday objects' can also be 'museum objects', since in India, as in many countries in South Asia, there is so much that is living heritage.

As we walked the Streets around the Central market and the old city in Lille, we saw the most enticing bakeries and shops selling French souvenirs. And, I thought, there is only so much you can do in one day and only so much you can eat in one day, but it is always a good idea to try everything you possibly can!!

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Lille Book Market

Young and old people walked about quietly through the courtyard and the passages around it, rummaging through old books and secondhand magazines, old photographs, posters and records. For us, it was a different book landscape than we were used to. The graphics were different, the text was different. Here and there in-between was a text that was familiar, an artist’s work that you had read about before or seen earlier.

This Book Market in the Vieille Bourse (Old Stock Exchange) Courtyard in Lille, France was really so charming a place and it is something that happens every day of the year. It was part of our one-day walking tour through Lille and we were told it had only French books and nothing much else! But then, as we walked into this heritage building with its interesting architectural details, we did want to just be here for a while.

Soon I picked up a black and white poster of a café in Brazil. We then talked to the Bookseller who had sold me the poster. I learnt from a Dutch colleague that he was perhaps of Algerian origin, that Algeria was one of France’s longest held overseas territories, with French Algeria lasting from 1830 to 1962. The Bookseller had a lot to tell us and I couldn’t understand a word since I didn’t know French! I did get to hear the translation and wished that there was a universal language for people from all the many different parts of the world!

Here's something else I learnt from my Dutch colleague: "Secondhand book markets in France are quite common, for example from the stalls along the Seine in Paris. In Holland, you won’t find too much secondhand book markets, in shops, yes. The main exception are the secondhand markets at ‘Koninginnedag’, when the Queen's birthday is celebrated. Then, all of a sudden the whole country seems to be mad about secondhand things and everybody is selling all stuff accumulated during the last year."

We saw a plaque at the entrance to the Bourse building that read: “In the year 1651, the Town of Lille obtained from Philippe IV of Spain permission to build on public land ‘a stock exchange’ to be used by merchants and to be enclosed and surrounded by 24 houses. The town of Lille sold to 24 traders the plots located on the marketplace and paid for the construction of the galleries, the paving of the inside yard and the four gates. This building was completed in 1653 and the architect was Julien Destree. The stock exchange is a fine addition to Lille architecture and a credit to the enthusiasm and energy of its citizens”

We had come into the courtyard in the morning soon after we had arrived in Lille and had just rushed through it on our way to the Palais des Beaux Arts. And now, as we returned to it in the evening, it was outside still drizzling sometimes, and sunny sometimes, but in the courtyard, nothing seemed to have changed – the books and the posters amidst the slow footsteps, including our own.

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