Date/Time
Date(s) - 19th Sep 2016 - 23rd Sep 2016
All Day
Location
Hotel Grand Place, Lille
Categories No Categories
Northern France, and in particular the region around the historic city of Lille, tends to be overlooked by those passing through. Yet it has much to offer both historically and in the regeneration of its major towns. Boasting a number of fine new museums, the region is now becoming recognised as one of outstanding cultural excellence. Together with our long time travel associate, Heritage Group Travel, we have devised a five-day study tour of the area’s principal art and architectural highlights.
Based in the centrally located Haussmann-era Hotel Grand Place, we will explore the cobbled squares and narrow streets of Vieux Lille together with its imposing civic buildings. Visits will include the Musée des Beaux-Arts, considered second only to the Louvre, and the charming Musée de l’Hospice Comtesse. A stroll in the Bois de Boulogne will encompass Vaubin’s greatest fortification, the Citadel, and, out of town in Villeneuve d’Ascq, we will visit the major painting and sculpture collection in the contemporary galleries of the Lille Metropole Musée d’Art Moderne in their attractive parkland setting. A day’s outing will take us to Roubaix and, a highlight of our tour, the stunning André Diligent Museum of Art and industry in its converted Art Deco piscine, continuing on to visit the recently restored Villa Cavrois, an iconic work by modernist architect Robert Mallet-Stevens. Our final day’s return journey will be broken in Lens to view the new outpost of the Musée Louvre, in its imposing glass and polished aluminium structure by world renowned Japanese architects SANAA.
This will be our first foreign tour by coach, including the Cheltenham–Lille journeys via Eurotunnel, and we will benefit from expert local guiding throughout. The tour price includes 4* hotel accommodation on a B&B basis together with two group dinners, travel by Pulhams luxury coach, guiding and all entry charges.
The group will be restricted to twenty and the anticipated cost will be around £775.00 per person.
To register your interest and to ensure a place in what we anticipate being a popular tour, please contact Douglas Ogle, 1 Wellington Square, Cheltenham GL50 4JU, ogle1welly@waitrose.com.
Booking arrangements through Heritage Group Travel, our fully bonded specialist travel agent.