Entry tags:
Tournai
Packed up and checked out of our postage-stamp studio apartment (the whole place, including bathroom, was about 12 foot-lengths square), hauled our suitcases on the subway to the Gare du Nord, and (after going around in circles for a while trying to find the right hall of tracks) found our TGV train to Lille. The ride went smoothly, but there was a babe-in-arms in the facing seat to mine, and after about the halfway point of the hour-long ride he started getting increasingly fussy and noisy.
Anyway, we got to Lille, got off, and realized that we needed to get from the "Lille Europe" station (for long-distance trains) to the "Lille Flandres" station (for local and regional trains). It's a 10-minute walk, or one stop on the Metro (which we didn't know how to use), or one stop on the Tram (ditto, but I had thought it might be gratis). Found the tram track, which had a ticket machine nearby, so I tried to buy tickets in a hurry before the tram arrived. Bought two tickets, it only printed one, we got on anyway, it went one stop to the other station, and nobody ever checked the tickets. Got off, bought some pre-made, just-microwaved burritos as a quick, portable lunch, found our track, and finished lunch while waiting for the train to arrive.
Got off in Tournai (in a different nation, but they don't make a big fuss about that here), walked 15 minutes to our hotel, checked in and collapsed for a few minutes. But just around the corner from the hotel is the office de tourisme, and across the street from that is the impressive Cathedral de Tournai. So we visited those. The office de tourisme boasts of its "medieval cellar", which does indeed have some medieval pillars and stone walls, and is currently housing an art exhibition called "TournAI", a collection of surrealistic photos and short videos, created by AI, starring implausible, Dr. Seuss-esque architecture.
The Cathedral's nave was built first in Romanesque style, with more and more Gothic features incorporated at the altar-and-choir end. The whole building is roughly the same size as Notre Dame de Paris (slightly larger in some dimensions, slightly smaller in others), and largely covered with scaffolding as various parts of it are repaired and restored.
In fact, if you stand in the center of the nave and look towards the altar, what you see behind the altar are photographs of what was actually there before they started renovating (note the shadow of the cross on the photograph behind it). What's actually behind the altar looks more like...
We paid a few euros to visit the Treasury, which houses a variety of reliquaries made from the 7th-19th centuries, and allegedly the cope of St. Thomas a Becket (there was a lengthy explanation, which I didn't translate successfully, of how it got to Tournai).
Then moved on to the Place Grande, the central square of the town. Looming over one end of the square is the Beffroi, the town bell tower (the town had been specifically granted the right to a secular bell tower, as distinct from a church bell tower, in 1183). We walked almost 360° around the tower, over and around road construction,
to get to the entrance, climbed the tower and got some good views of the city,
then came down with tired legs and sat down with a Belgian waffle (pretty good) and some chocolat chaud (meh).
Visited another church, the Romanesque Sintkventinkerk, which was badly damaged by German bombing in 1940, and largely repaired (and some of the Gothic add-ons reverted to Romanesque) in the 1990's and 2000's.
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shalmestere was in a mood for carbonnade flamande, and the first brasserie we stopped at on the central square had it on the menu, so she ordered some, I ordered pâte carbonara, and they were both delicious but so rich we couldn't finish them. Back to the hotel room to decompress.
Tournai has a Musée des Tapisseries, which is "temporarily closed", and a Musée Archéologique, which is "temporarily closed", and a couple of other museums that might be interesting if they were open but they're not. So tomorrow we'll take a morning train to Brussels, check into the hotel there, and probably visit a museum or two in the afternoon.
Anyway, we got to Lille, got off, and realized that we needed to get from the "Lille Europe" station (for long-distance trains) to the "Lille Flandres" station (for local and regional trains). It's a 10-minute walk, or one stop on the Metro (which we didn't know how to use), or one stop on the Tram (ditto, but I had thought it might be gratis). Found the tram track, which had a ticket machine nearby, so I tried to buy tickets in a hurry before the tram arrived. Bought two tickets, it only printed one, we got on anyway, it went one stop to the other station, and nobody ever checked the tickets. Got off, bought some pre-made, just-microwaved burritos as a quick, portable lunch, found our track, and finished lunch while waiting for the train to arrive.
Got off in Tournai (in a different nation, but they don't make a big fuss about that here), walked 15 minutes to our hotel, checked in and collapsed for a few minutes. But just around the corner from the hotel is the office de tourisme, and across the street from that is the impressive Cathedral de Tournai. So we visited those. The office de tourisme boasts of its "medieval cellar", which does indeed have some medieval pillars and stone walls, and is currently housing an art exhibition called "TournAI", a collection of surrealistic photos and short videos, created by AI, starring implausible, Dr. Seuss-esque architecture.
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 |
The Cathedral's nave was built first in Romanesque style, with more and more Gothic features incorporated at the altar-and-choir end. The whole building is roughly the same size as Notre Dame de Paris (slightly larger in some dimensions, slightly smaller in others), and largely covered with scaffolding as various parts of it are repaired and restored.
In fact, if you stand in the center of the nave and look towards the altar, what you see behind the altar are photographs of what was actually there before they started renovating (note the shadow of the cross on the photograph behind it). What's actually behind the altar looks more like...
 |
 |
We paid a few euros to visit the Treasury, which houses a variety of reliquaries made from the 7th-19th centuries, and allegedly the cope of St. Thomas a Becket (there was a lengthy explanation, which I didn't translate successfully, of how it got to Tournai).
Then moved on to the Place Grande, the central square of the town. Looming over one end of the square is the Beffroi, the town bell tower (the town had been specifically granted the right to a secular bell tower, as distinct from a church bell tower, in 1183). We walked almost 360° around the tower, over and around road construction,
 |
 |
to get to the entrance, climbed the tower and got some good views of the city,
 |
 |
 |
 |
then came down with tired legs and sat down with a Belgian waffle (pretty good) and some chocolat chaud (meh).
Visited another church, the Romanesque Sintkventinkerk, which was badly damaged by German bombing in 1940, and largely repaired (and some of the Gothic add-ons reverted to Romanesque) in the 1990's and 2000's.
 |
 |
 |
shalmestere was in a mood for carbonnade flamande, and the first brasserie we stopped at on the central square had it on the menu, so she ordered some, I ordered pâte carbonara, and they were both delicious but so rich we couldn't finish them. Back to the hotel room to decompress.Tournai has a Musée des Tapisseries, which is "temporarily closed", and a Musée Archéologique, which is "temporarily closed", and a couple of other museums that might be interesting if they were open but they're not. So tomorrow we'll take a morning train to Brussels, check into the hotel there, and probably visit a museum or two in the afternoon.