11/07/2026
LILLE, WAMBRECHIES, & TRAINS BETWEEN BELGIUM/FRANCE 🇧🇪🇫🇷
Back on 1st April (get your Poisson d'Avrils ready, Francophones), I travelled via Maastricht to Lille and Wambrechies. The latter is a town along a large canal, once independent and now swallowed by the Lille conurbation/agglomération
Changing multiple times, the price was pretty good (€18 from Maastricht) but it did take quite a while. Most notably, the cross border train from Tournoi to Lille Flandres was slower and delayed
That said, Lille is a lovely city! I always thought northern France was the country's most boring corner, essentially Southern England with menus in French, but thankfully its much better than that!
Lille has a metro - a light metro similar to Rennes, but older in a way which means the cars are even smaller. It works, and there are some trams, but the team frequency seems very poor... 🚇
Big bonus, however, the buses are some of the best I've seen in France. Frequent, easy to understand, and well integrated with the metro 👍
Wambrechies has a lovely canalside, with a beautiful mairie and bakery with local chocolates (Le Palet d'Or), and the architecture in the centre of Lille is amazing! Some great bike lanes being put in, and an impressive town hall which is surprisingly modern and reflects the style of Ghent, not far away in Flanders...
The TGV connections must be unparalleled for a city caught between Britain, France, and Benelux. Local cross border services, and local stuff across Northern France, plus (when you include Lille Europe) TGVs all over France
An incredibly useful spot for flight free travellers on NW Europe - ideal for changing trains and taking a break ❤️
