Out and about in Lille

I don't have much to say, but I have accumulated quite a few pictures from recent walkabouts in Lille, both with and without Bailey. We are heading to Cologne, Germany on Sunday for a few days to visit their Christmas markets so I needed to offload these pictures before we go. 

This is the belfry in Lille. It was built as a watch tower. You can go up it, but we did not.

The fleur-de-lis is the symbol for Lille, this one is at the mayor's office. 

Fun fact about France, all marriages take place at the local mayor's office. You can have a church ceremony as well, but it's not the official event and it has no validity without the civil event that occurs at the mayor's office. We were just visiting there to see a local arts and crafts sale.

The Porte de Paris

An interesting old house we walked past. See that smallish sign on the wall to the left? Those are found  on registered historical monuments about town.

Back at the Citadel on a sunny day. We are out here walking twice a day, rain or shine. There have been more cloudy days lately but I seem to take more pictures in those rare moments of sunshine. Even when it does rain, it's usually not raining constantly all day long.

This is the home of Charles DeGaulle's grandmother where he was born. The very next day they hustled him off to the church down the street to be baptized. The house was an interesting museum. They owned a factory of some sort nearby but the house was not particularly large or ostentatious. 

This little piece was in one of the bedrooms. We have an identical piece of furniture that we bought at the broderie back in September.

We had some luck finding good play companions for Bailey this week. This dog was fun. He appears to be part greyhound or whippet or something. He was fast and gave Bailey a good run. I'm finding myself trying to figure out the walking schedules of certain dogs so we can encounter them on the playing field. The sun goes down at 4:45 p.m. now so it's tough finding people and dogs to play with in the evenings although one night she ran with a dog in the dark.

A mute swan on the canal.

I'm guessing that this dog may have trouble finding good play partners because he's a big chonky bully-looking boy. He's about Bailey's age and they had a really good run.

I am fascinated by the canal and I love watching canal boats. This was a particular busy morning.

I made a walk to and through the Christmas market last night because I needed more steps to hit my 20K daily goal.