21.9 - Journées du Patrimoine 2

I took the first bus (9.52) to Lille in the morning. There are not that many buses on sundays. Yesterday evening I had prepared some quick miniquiches because I was going to have picknick with some friends today at 13. I met with Elisa (Spain) at  Gare Lille Flandres to start exploring different attractions. She missed her train so I made french homework for a while.

We began with L'église Saint Maurice, which is a very beautiful and decorated church in the middle of the city. We joined a while a guided group and I mostly just admired all the window paintings. For Elisa they were not that special but they are not that common in Finland.

Elisa has studied Politics and I was really impressed that a girl from Spain already knew wo much about the finnish society. Very interesting to listen to her.

Palais de Beaux Arts Lille, was our next destination. It is an art museum with high quality it's the second after Le Louvre in Paris.

At the door we were given tickets for a free entrance. Not complaining ;)

We were relly lucky to have the possibility to visit this. Even though I'm usually not such a huge artfreak, I loved this museum. It was a great feeling to see paintings from famous artists and just admire beautiful art.

I liked this statue because of the different colour and the cute theme.

This is a sculpture of Napoleon.

Many paintings were really impressing!

A real Pablo Picasso painting.

I have done many projects in school about Claude Monet and finally see a painting by him in real life.

Vincent Van Gogh - Les vaches

Donatello - Le festin d'Hérode

Sofia joined us for picnic. We sat on the stairs in front of the Opera in the center and then we continued to La Citadelle, which is a military base that you normally can't visit.

We saw the Foire de manège, which is the biggest tivoli of Françe and it's in Lille at the moment. We have to visit it still this week before it leaves! Next we went to La Conservatoire de Lille for a visit. A guy played very beautifully with a flute and we were guided around in the conservatory. 

Then we met up with Iara, Brittany and Annija (student and previous au pair in Iaras family from Latvia) and visited some art ateliers.

Elisa (Spain), Brittany (USA), Iara (Spain), Sofia (Sweden), Annija (Latvia)

There was a guy standing outside the opera holding a plaquate with a warning: Blog alerte invasion extraterrestre (attention for an alien invasion). 

We met fast also Pat and Laura and went for a gaufre and ice cream. Then a few of us went home and the rest went to watch a Cirque in front of La Cathédrale de la Treille. It was really simple with two funny acrobats making a show but it was really nice.

Last but not least we visited Opera de Lille. The building was beautifully decorated and old fashioned.

Boah, I spent 9h in Lille today but I've really enjoyed the time. Lot of friends and new explorings. In the bus I almost fell asleep. The family came home a bit after me. They had been chez mamu and papu to celebrate mamus birthday. When they came home, we ordered pizza.

I'm ready for the next french lesson tomorrow! All homework is done and I'm kind of practicing all the time ;)