Rue de Gand

Thai, taverns, Japanese, bistronomy ... the street of Gand, which displayed itself as THE street of the restaurants in Lille, proposes all type of cooking in the heart of historical Lille.

These are old Flemish mansions with colourful facades that mark this lively street of Old Lille. It is necessary to see it during the summer, when the sector become pedestrian, takes an air of Montmartre with all these terraces that take possession of the roadway.

It is reached by the pretty Place Louise de Bettignies and leads to one of the emblematic buildings of the historical heritage of Lille: the Porte de Gand. One of the last three vestiges of the time when Lille was a fortified city (with the Porte de Roubaix and Porte de Paris), the gate of Ghent was built at the beginning of the 17th century. An original gourmet restaurant occupies the top of the Porte de Gand. A gourmet place very appreciable in an atypical place, modern and preserved.

Continuing for a walk along the road towards the Rue des Urbanistes, we arrive at the Place aux Bleuets (cornflowers square)

Over the centuries, and according to events, the streets of Lille have taken the name of a monument, a religious edifice (rue des Urbanistes derives its name from the former Urbanist convent, which is occupied today by the Canonniers Museum), a corporation or an institution. Here, the Place aux Bleuets takes its name from a house that welcomed orphans from the 15th century onwards: the Cornflower Barn, which lasted until the 18th century. The so-called orphans, dressed in blue cloth, were then called "bleuets".

Nothing to do with any flower as some may think.