Every design for Lille

Step out of the courtyard of the Vieille Bourse and you are in Old Lille, where paved pedestrian streets run between seventeenth-century red-brick town houses. This is the city's essence: Flemish at heart, French by allegiance, and proud of both.

For anyone who knows Lille, the memories come in layers. The vast street market of the Braderie de Lille every September, when the city fills with visitors. The calm of the Jardin des Plantes. The tall Beffroi de Lille above the rooftops. The Citadelle reminding everyone that this was always a garrison town, besieged again and again, passed between France, Burgundy, the Holy Roman Empire and the Spanish Netherlands before Louis XIV took it for good. Then came the textile mills, a long decline, and a reinvention as a student city, with the TGV and the Eurostar putting it at the heart of Europe. Charles de Gaulle was born here, and the Maison natale de Charles de Gaulle still stands.

Whether you studied here, worked here or simply fell for its warmth, Lille stays with you. Take a little of the capital of Flanders wherever you go.