Lille / Roubaix

One day we set out past the boundaries of Paris to visit two more northernly cities, Lille and Roubaix.  We took the train to Roubaix, which turned out to be a quiet city with long avenues and multicolored houses stacked neatly in rows.

In Roubaix, we also visited La Piscine, a museum of art and industry.  The museum is in fact named La Piscine (the pool) because it was built over the old public pool of the city, integrating the works of art with the history of the location.

Our next stop after Roubaix was Lille, called the culture capital of Europe.  We were surprised to see that the center of town appeared to be a quaint village that had dropped out of nowhere, complete with huge cobblestones, elaborately-crafted street signs, and holiday garlands strung up between buildings that looked so picturesque they could have been hand-painted, every detail attended to.  We were even more surprised to see a row of gargantuan futuristic robot arches lining one of the main thoroughfares!  (They turned out to be part of the celebration of a year-long arts festival [ lille2004 ] the city is hosting.)