Sorry for the delay on this one! Before I flew home Friday I spent Thursday in Paris. I visited my favorite creperie, the Holocaust Memorial Museum, did some window shopping in the covered passages and Galeries Lafayette. Friday morning, I had breakfast and then wandered along the river before I had to catch the RER to the airport.

All in all a successful trip-can’t wait to come back! ❤️

Sorry for the delay in posts-I’m home now, so the travel time made posting challenging!

Last week the summer program did a day in Brussels, Belgium. I started my day by visiting the Comic Book Museum.

Also on Brussels there is a lot of comic book inspired street art

Then it looked like it might rain again, so I made my way to the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert, which is a covered shopping area. Inside are a lot of art galleries and other expensive shops, but fun for window shopping!

Then it was off to find the 3 “famous” Brussels statues… 😂

Everybody’s peeing in Brussels LOL

And of course it wouldn’t be a trip to Brussels without some frites!

And we ended the day by all meeting in Grand-Place.

One of the science field trips goes down into the quarries that run all under the city and this year I got to go along!

I don’t have a lot to say, but here are some pictures:

On Sunday, I took my students to Paris to give them sort of an overview (it’s only an hour from Lille, so it’s a quick day trip).

We started the day by going up Montmartre and Sacré Coeur, which are the highest points in Paris.

Then we headed off to the Eiffel Tower and to walk along the river.

Then I headed to Sainte-Chapelle (possibly controversial opinion: if you only go to one church in Paris this is the one-the stained glass will quite literally take your breath away and the pictures do not do it justice).

Then I went into La Conciergerie, which was originally a palace and then (ironically) became a prison during the French Revolution that most notably housed Marie-Antoinette

Ended the day with a crêpe at Notre Dame

On Saturday, I went to Strasbourg for the day. Strasbourg is in Alsace, France, which is on the eastern side, next to Germany. Alsace has gone back and forth between being part of Germany and France throughout history, so even though today it is officially part of France its German roots are fully on display!

First up, was to see the storks! I’ve been to Strasbourg before, but only in the winter, so the lovely weather we had felt like a great opportunity to walk a bit outside of town and see the storks.

Storks are the symbol of Alsace and their population was declining, so Strasbourg created an area where they could build nests and flourish.

On the way back from the storks I passed some of the European Union buildings.

Strasbourg is also known for its cathedral.

Time for a pretzel break!!

Then off to La Petite France, which is the cute/very German influenced part of town.

I wish I would have had more time to explore because it’s been quite some time since I have been in Strasbourg. I’ll have to add it to the list for a future trip!

The students had a half day trip to Iepers Wednesday, which I did last year and didn’t feel the need to do again, so I used the day to go to Provins.

Provins is a medieval town about 90 minutes outside of Paris. We mostly just spent the day wandering, but the last thing we did was a tour of some of the tunnels that go under the town.

I think it’s time to get to the pictures though!

Another fun day of exploration!!!

This weekend I’ll be in Strasbourg and Paris with my students, so more coming soon!

I haven’t shared many pictures of Lille itself, so here are a few:

Last week, I accompanied some of the students on their field trip to the Terrils, which are mounds of coal mining waste that you can see all around not far from Lille. We hiked one of them as well, so here are some pictures of them:

It was an interesting site to see and I’m glad I was able to tag along!

Lyon is famous for it’s street art, so here is sort of a mix of all the different piece we stumbled upon:

Some other cool things we found on our wandering:

Our last day we went to the Resistance Museum, which focuses on the resistance efforts during WW2 in Lyon because Lyon was considered the capitol of the resistance movement. Really interesting, but not a lot of photo ops.

Then we headed to the Cathedral in the old town (it was closed the day before when we tried to go) and I happened to go in just before the Astronomical Clock went off (I tried to add a video but it doesn’t seem to be cooperating-sorry!)

We also may or may not have eaten at the same ice cream place every day…..

All in all I really enjoyed Lyon and I would definitely go again and highly recommend it to someone who wanted to go somewhere outside of Paris!

Yesterday, I showed you the view of Fourvière looking up and today I’ll show you what’s up there!

First is the matter of getting up there you can either take the stairs:

Or the Funicular:

I’ll let you decide which one I took 😂

Up on top of the hill is a few sites worth mentioning first up: Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourvière:

Just a few steps from the Basilique is La Tour Métallique (aka the baby Eiffel Tower) which was finished 5 years after the Eiffel Tower.

A few steps in the other direction from the Basilique is Lugdunum Musée et Théâtres, which is the museums and accompanying ruins to the first civilization in Lyon (called Lugdunum at the time).

Then it was off to explore more of Vieux Lyon. One thing Lyon is famous for is its Traboules, which are little passageways that connect the main streets. They were originally used by the silk workers to move silk works from one production area to another (but they also came quite in handy during WW2 for the Résistance).

More Vieux Lyon pics….

For dinner, we ate at a bouchon which is a typically Lyonnaise restaurant.

After dinner we went and looked at some street art, but I’ll save that for my next post!

This weekend I went to a town that’s been on my France to do list for quite some time now-Lyon! Lyon is the 3rd largest city in France and I loved it!

To start where is Lyon? I circled in green on the map Lille (where I am based) and Lyon-to give you a sense of distance it’s about a 3 hour train ride.

Lyon has 2 rivers running through it the Rhône and the Saône, which create this little peninsula called La Presqu’île (almost an island).

Section 2 is Vieux Lyon (the old part of town):

Here are some views of the Saône river

I didn’t arrive in Lyon until 4pm, so I didn’t have much time for wandering, but more to come on Day 2!