Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille and Beffroi de Bergues

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille

   Lille's town hall belfry is a child of the twentieth century. After the old town hall was lost, the architect Émile Dubuisson built a new one in the 1920s and early 1930s in a working-class district south of the centre, and its belfry, rising about 104 metres, is the tallest civic belfry in Europe. Built of reinforced concrete and brick in an Art Deco reinterpretation of the Flemish tradition, it is part of the UNESCO-listed Belfries of Belgium and France, a group that celebrates the towers built by towns to symbolise their freedom and civic pride.

   Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille is where the day begins. Next is Cité de Rimbert.

2. 2. Cité de Rimbert

   West of Béthune, the coalfield starts to run out of flat land. The first chalk hills of Artois rise around Auchel and Cauchy-à-la-Tour, and the pit villages climb their slopes in neat rows of brick. The Cité de Rimbert is one of these, built by the mining company of Marles to house its workers, and it belongs to the long necklace of sites in the UNESCO-listed mining basin. Its houses, gardens and straight streets are a textbook example of company planning, with every family given a home, a vegetable plot and a short walk to the pit.

   Read the complete Cité de Rimbert write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Cité de Rimbert comes up about 79 km into the recorded legs. Next is Beffroi de Bergues.

3. 3. Beffroi de Bergues

   Bergues found a new kind of fame in 2008, when the comedy Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, filmed here, became one of the most successful French films of all time, and suddenly the whole country wanted to see the town where a postman from the south is exiled to the cold north and ends up falling in love with it. The film's best-known scenes include the belfry, from which the hero rings the carillon, and the town still welcomes visitors who come in search of the locations. But Bergues was a proud place long before cinema arrived. It is a small fortified town in French Flanders, surrounded by ramparts and canals, with fortifications improved by Vauban in the seventeenth century.

   Read the complete Beffroi de Bergues write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 154 km into the recorded legs you reach Beffroi de Bergues. Next is back through Cité de Rimbert.

4. 4. back through Cité de Rimbert

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Cité de Rimbert write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Cité de Rimbert, late in the day. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille.

5. 5. Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville de Lille. That is the ride.