Fantastic!

I recently had another chance to see more of Lille.

Go, if you have a chance. Until the 13th of January, the Fantastic! festival is going on. Lots of site-specific modern art and happenings.

While the weather in Lille makes Paris seem downright balmy, there's a lot of really interesting stuff to see.

I went with a big group on a motivated "see a lot" tour.

Most of the pieces were saw were very large-scale, and they had been set up in old churches and warehouses and abandoned train stations. It was a fairly grueling itinerary.

A huge cling-wrap sculpture in which you can clamber into was a highlight.

A hall of mirrors...

The last stop was a pop-up beauty bar, complete with a chilly tub soak.

The TGV only take an hour from Paris Gare du Nord, an hour and a half from London. Go!

Lille

Lille is in the far north west of France in Nord-Pas de Calais, right on the border with Belgium. It has a reputation of being an artsy town and it makes for a nice day trip. We were there on a Sunday so it was kind of quiet. Like Paris, most places shutter on Sundays.

We headed to the main museum, the Palais des Beaux Arts. Lucky me, there was an exhibit called, "Fables of Flemish Landscapes", which was all Bosch and Brueghel paintings. This is one of my favorite genere of art history and they had quite the collection of bizarre and macabre works. I'm fascinated by them and especially Bosch, who looks like he might have taken psychedelics before putting brush to canvas.

Bosch paintings especially are vivid and terrifying, with a common theme of hell and limbo in most of them. This appeals to me greatly.

The details of the demons are just nightmarish and chilling.

It was obvious these painters were terrified of death and dying. Vice, vanity, piousness and exile.

The permanent collection was a good find as well.

Lille has a quaint town square. It was quiet, but the former borse had an interesting flea market going on, and we did eventually find a place to stop for bite.

The wind was pretty incredible...we were getting the remnants of Hurricane Sandy, which meant a lot of wind and hail storms. Even on the other side of the Atlantic, the giant storm let herself be known.