Arrival in Lille.

Please forgive any grand typos you might find in this post. And any until I hit English soil. It will take me a while to get used to the French keyboard.

Lille is beautiful, but I have little appetite for walking or eating or shopping today. Last night I thought it might be coming on and today I believe it to have arrived - cold numero dos of this trip and number three of the season. I think I'm going to have my own personal hurricane season of illness this year. After having bought my ticket from London to Amsterdam for my final weekend in Europe, I shall stop in the grocery store (which ,ay be the only thing open when I am done) for seme mediocre bread and cheese. No sense paying for good stuff when I can't taste.

Enough whining.

I arrived in Lille at noon and walked to the hotel. Yes, hotel. I even have my own shower and t.v. I am thinking a good night's sleep (two, really) will cure this batch of the creeping crud. After settling into my single room with seafoam green walls, I headed to the tourist office to see about a walking tour. Killed a bit of time and it was 14:30, tour time.

The tour was of Vieux Lille (Old Lille) and the guide was a fabulously enthusiastic and entertaining woman who's been giving tours for about 15 years. Our last stop was the Church of Our Lady of the Trellis (the fence around the statues you find of Mary, not the one in her garden). There is a magnificent wall in which you find the ,ain door to the church. It is of translucent marble. The church was started before WWI and finished after WWII. The church is full of light and seems to hum with this light. Originally, this wall was like any other in the church - stone and cement, but Lille wanted to be selected to be a cultural capital of Europe and you can't do that wen your cathedral is modern and dreary. It is my favorite church so far in all my travels for simple beauty of light and stone.

Now I'm at Cybercafe Smiley. They aren't open tomorrow, so I'll write again Monday from Bayeux. I think that's where I'll be Monday.