Lille Old Town

Lille was Flemish, then Spanish, then French from 1667, and Vieux Lille shows it: seventeenth-century houses in red brick with sandstone banding and scrolled gables, tighter and more northern than anything in central France, around the Grand'Place and the Old Stock Exchange, a merchant building of 1653 whose courtyard now holds secondhand book stalls and chess players. The Braderie de Lille each September is the largest flea market in Europe, with sellers spreading along the streets over a weekend and around two million people attending; restaurants serve mussels and pile the empty shells outside their doors, competing on the height of the heap.

What you actually see

• The Old Stock Exchange - a 1653 courtyard of book stalls and chess games.
• The Flemish gables - brick and sandstone facades around the Grand'Place.
• The Braderie - Europe's largest flea market over a September weekend.
• The mussel shell heaps - restaurants piling shells outside during the Braderie.

When to go

April to October; the Braderie falls on the first weekend of September and dominates the city entirely. The Christmas market runs in December. Term time keeps the student quarters lively.

Honest expectations

Braderie weekend fills every hotel for months ahead and the city becomes impassable. Vieux Lille is expensive. Lille's weather is genuinely wet and grey for much of the year.

Nearby

Roubaix lies northeast; Belgium is a few kilometres north.