Lille and Dunkirk

Hello again, dear friends! It has taken me way too long to write about this. A while ago, I had a few days off from school, so I took the opportunity to pop over to France and visit some friends. Pause for a second to realise how cool it is that I can “pop over to France.” They are currently studying abroad in Lille, and although it was quite a long trip by bus, I can’t complain. The first night I got there, I was already in awe of the fabulous corner buildings that are quintessentially French.

Danielle took me to a great burger place that evening. The next day, we took a trip to Dunkirk. We wenr on the rainiest, coldest day possible. Our first stop was the Port Museum. They had an audio tour which was completely free.

The museum itself was all about Dunkirk’s role over the years as a main port in France. It touched on its role in both World Wars including the big rescue mission we all know it for.

I liked all the different artefacts and titbits of information they included in it. I liked the fact that the museum gave you a different insight to Dunkirk as a town. The audio tour was necessary for someone who doesn’t speak French. However, the numbers are very disorganised. There were a number of times where the number was nowhere to be found. The museum has all day entry where you can return, so we headed for the beach when the weather improved and then came back when we were done.

The next stop was the beach itself. What you can’t see in this picture is how miserable and wet we were. All of our phones died from cold, and I’m still not 100% sure how we manged to get this picture on self-timer. Being on the beach was humbling. We stopped by the monument to the Allied forces and had a moment there.

Afterwards, we found out there was an exhibit in an art gallery dedicated to the Dunkirk film. Just so you know, there is a bridge that takes you directly to the gallery that is not on Google maps. It was a frustrating moment when we realised we went all the way around. The exhibit was really cool. They kept a lot of the props from the film and explained the process behind filming. Do you recognise the first aid ship that sinks?

The most hilarious thing for me was the row of fake soldiers. For the aerial shots of soldiers lined up on the beach, they had cardboard cut-outs of soldiers mixed in with a few real actors that movie. I don’t know why I found that so amusing, but I laughed the whole time. That night, Susan and I yelled “faaaaaake” anytime we saw a longshot of the line-up.

Dunkirk itself isn’t much to look at. A majority of it is under construction. We caught the sunset on the way out, and that was the best part. Apparently, tourism has increased 300% since the movie came out. I hope the increase in funds will help them tidy up the town a little bit.

On my last morning, Susan and Danielle took me out for crepes (obviously). This place had a student deal with one savoury and one sweet crepe. It was outstanding. To be honest, all of the food was outstanding. We went to a cupcake place later in the day which had safe cupcakes for me with the nut allergy where I had the best mocha in the world.

The rest of the day was spent wandering around Lille. It is the cutest little town with lots of people (it’s a university town) and lots of little shops. We did stop by a thrift store where I got a fantastic scarf to match all the French girls.

I loved my trip to Lille and Dunkirk. I love connecting with friends abroad. Advice I would give to anyone is to make connections everywhere in the world and then use them! My trip wasn’t all that expensive because I didn’t have to pay for accommodation. The train to Dunkirk wasn’t expensive either. I spent most of my money on food, and that was all worth it.

Feel free to share any experiences in Lille or Dunkirk below!

Also, please follow Danielle on Instagram for more pictures of her travels (it's a great feed): @deesiewood

Daniella