A Lille Break

Believe it or not, owning a car in London is a good thing.

Sure, there are the down sides - the rego is due but you need a new MOT, oh and a service, and oh sorry Madam, you need new shocks, and a wishbone - or it catches fire when you are driving to work (after having had it "repaired" - yes people, that really DID happen to me). But despite all this, it gives you the freedom to escape the city for the countryside at every available opportunity, or, for the slightly more adventurous, (and for not a lot of money), the chance to pop over to France for the day / weekend on the Channel Tunnel.

So, being the Easter weekend, that's exactly what Mal, Mum and I did. We choofed off to Lille for the weekend.

For those who don't know what a journey on the Channel Tunnel entails - basically you drive your car on to a huge train which then makes the journey through the tunnel under the Channel, taking about 30 minutes to cross. The crossing was pretty smooth, except for the fact that some burke had left the heating on in the train (it was 20 degrees outside - a warm spring day for England) and we were melting by the time we arrived.

We headed off towards Lille and decided to make a short stop in Dunkerque, encountering rather a lot of motor homes parked overlooking the beach. Pretty bleak outlook (and no, I don't mean Mum and Mal! hehehe). To each their own, I guess. So we pressed on to Lille...

Mum and Mal at Dunkerque

I have never been to Lille before nor have I ever wanted to go, but actually, it is a real pretty little city. It was the European capital of culture (or something like this) in 2004 and I guess you can sort of see why, it has some very beautiful architecture and there are heaps of things to do /see there. Plus the food is pretty good, too (as my hips will attest!). If you only have a limited amount of time in Lille, as we did, then my recommendation is to do a mini-bus tour for €9.50, bookable from the tourist information centre in the Palais Rihour. This tour lasts about an hour and is an audio visual experience so you get to see what the buildings look like inside without having to leave your seat (or pay more for the experience).

In order to keep the weekend costs down, we decided to fall back on our old favourite, Formule 1, for accommodation. This hotel chain was introduced to me by my good friend Chris a few years back when he was visiting Paris with his mate Sam for a gaming tournament. Its good, cheap accommodation - the rooms are all exactly the same, no variation (at least that I've seen) from country to country - they appear to be pre-fabricated capsules. For not much more than the cost of a dormitory room in a hostel, you get a room to yourself with a double bed, bunk bed, sink and TV (plus a couple of power points and a desk). You don't have any keys to worry about, as there is a 6 digit code for you to forget which allows you access to your room (you should have seen it a little while back when we did the Normandie beaches, Belgium and Amsterdam and stayed in these hotels - a new code every night - didn't know whether we were coming or going...).

The amenities are located outside of the room and "self-clean" automatically when you leave them. The only problem with the toilets is that there is no basin to wash your hands after you do your business - which means that every single person who uses the facilities has to touch the door handle with their manky hands afterwards to leave the cubicle, then touch the minging door handle (and key code pad) to the rooms - BEFORE washing their hands in their rooms... and I don't know if the cleaning crew for the hotel actually clean the door handles... hm. Food for thought.

The only other thing I can find fault with in the Formule 1's is that they are usually located on the outskirts of the town and so you really do need a car to get there. That's ok, but for a couple of things. First, the directions to the hotel on the website and in the booklet are only provided in the language of the country the hotel is in. Therefore, if you are staying in a Formule 1 in France, the directions are in French. Now I never studied any French at school, and the extent of my French is basically anything to do with musical terms (which is why I can understand some road signs e.g. cedez le passage and know my gauche from my droit), or ask for the bill. So you try deciphering:

Par autoroute de Paris, Calais, Dunkerque, Lille : suivre dir. Roubaix/ Tourcoing-Gent (A22), sortie 17 ( Halluin / Tourcoing) après le centre commercial Auchan. Dans la sortie 17 prendre à gauche en direction de Halluin/ Douane, continuer tout droit jusqu' au 2ème rond-point. F1 au 2e rond-point sur le parking du restaurant Buffalo.

Que?

Throw into that the fact that highways in France (and indeed much of Europe) often have more than one name - I think due to the EU thing. So you can be on the E42, which is also the A25, and is also called the N225. At one point I saw 4 names for the same road! Suffice to say we had more than our fair share of trouble trying to find the hotel...

But it was a brilliant weekend after all... roll on Scotland next week...

Oh, and I can recommend a cute little pub in Stanford North just off the M20 en route from London to Folkestone, called "The Drum Inn". Excellent food, excellent prices, and great history - the pub was built in 1708 and has a whole gory history with smugglers, night watchmen and the military...