Summer on the sunny terrace of the Place aux Oignons, winter in the rooms spread over the two floors – typical and ultra-warm with their wooden tables, their ceramics and their vierpots, the traditional ember pots used for lighting your pipe. The cuisine infuses the traditional spirit of the place with the expected repertoire – chicken with Maroilles, shrimp croquettes, Flemish carbonade, Welsch rarebit with morel mushrooms and pancakes with brown sugar, all accompanied by Saint-Landelin beer or amber Goudale. Fans will continue their discovery with La Vieille France and the Canon d’Or, also owned by Hervé Menuge, born and bred in Lille and in love with the spirit of these estaminets. https://estaminetlille.fr/auvieuxdelavieille/

Electro fans meet on the Underground floor, nostalgic 80s fans in the Vintage room where a Dj skillfully remixes the mythical hits of the time and techno fade-outs spill over to the Minima room, extended by a beautiful terrace for the summer evenings. Each space has its own bar and private areas for more intimate meetings, which does not prevent the faithful from going from one place to another to experience all the atmospheres that becomes increasingly electric as the hours go by. The Lille institution, a must-see! www.smileclub-lille.com

Imagine Art Deco architecture with a 50-metre Olympic pool, lit by immense stained glass windows where the sun reflects at dawn and at dusk. The whole opened onto a garden, a rose garden and shower baths – the place was then intended to provide bathing facilities for workers without running water at home. The swimming pool inexplicably fell into oblivion in the 1970s, only to come back to life in 2001 with the rehabilitation of the architect Jean-Pierre Philippon (already at work with the former Orsay railway station in Paris) who transformed it into a museum. Its immediate success has never wavered. We come here to admire the breathtakingly beautiful space, to discover the collections of paintings (19th and 20th century), ceramics and textiles, but also to experience the effervescence of this museum, which has been run by Bruno Gaudichon since its creation. A personality as warm as he is erudite who likes to create surprise by mixing arts and organizing happenings and concerts. The singer Donovan accompanied an exhibition on English painting, the soprano Agnès Obel performed at the exhibition devoted to the “Golden Century of Danish Painting”. www.roubaix-lapiscine.com

The former postal sorting office – converted into an art center as part of “Lille 2004, European Capital of Culture” – has become a major center for creation and is one of a favourite rendezvous for the people of Lille. A space for performances and celebrations where you can come and have a drink, listen to a concert or a reading and discover one of the exhibitions on offer, which are able to seduce as well as surprise. Fans recall with emotion the Perrotin gallery’s anniversary, “the incredible Seoul quick, quick” or “You have to change your life”. A 360° vision of contemporary art that celebrates design throughout the autumn with different installations “Designers of design” and “Sens-fiction”.

www.tripostal.com

The latter illuminates the heart of the old city and you can’t discover Lille without immediately going to the Grand Place. A place of breathtaking beauty with its narrow red brick houses, sculpted facades, the belfry and the old Stock Exchange in the background, which houses old merchants’ houses transformed into bars, restaurants and designer workshops. Close by is a maze of alleys that you’ll stroll through as you fall in love with it. The street of the cherubs and its ornate pilasters, that of the humpbacked cats and its mix of medieval and Art Deco facades or that of the Mint where the museum of the Hospice Comtesse and its 15th century buildings are hidden. Delft ceramics, Flemish furniture, old refectories and pharmacies… A plunge into history, life-size.

The favorite addresses of Naima, Our General Manager? The mythical Meert pastry shop with its sublime waffles (which General de Gaulle loved), the Ogre de Carrouselberg and its “Merveilleuses” lemon hazelnut and finally the Wazemmes market where you can find just about everything. Organic fruits and vegetables, great butchers and fishmongers but also street food stalls, a small flea market around the Saint-Pierre-Saint-Paul church. The beating heart of Lille life.

Pâtisserie Méert, 25-27 Rue Esquermoise, 59000 Lille

L’Ogre de Carrouselberg, 17 Rue des Vieux Murs, 59800 Lille

Marché de Wazemmes, Place Nouvelle Aventure, 59000 Lille

But this visit is above all a pretext for a breath of fresh air. The discovery of the zoo, an ultra-poetic stroll in the surrounding woods or a walk along the path that runs along the river Deule, on foot or by bike. Sometimes you can even rent a canoe.