As I mentioned previously, the first destination on our epic European Road Trip is the French city of Lille. For ease, we are staying at The Park Inn by Radisson (Grand Stade) which is located just a stones throw away from the motorway network and adjacent to Pierre Mauroy Stadium.
The Park Inn, as expected, contains fully wheelchair accessible rooms complete with an adequate wet room etc.
The other reason why we are staying at said hotel is that it is only around a 15 minute walk away from Lille’s metro system which takes you into the heart of the city. It is worth noting that the network is fully accessible with elevators located at all stations and level boarding. However, the metro tickets can be confusing, and unlucky for us the train that we caught was part of a random inspection. It then transpired that our tickets were not valid so we got kicked off and made to buy new ones! My PAs tried to explain the situation and after a few gestures it was all sorted.
The plan was to hop off at Gare De Flandres to explore said station, however, in true metro system fashion, we discovered that the elevator was undergoing maintenance. After denying a guy from trying to lift the chair, we jumped back on and headed down one stop to Rihour which, conveniently, surfaces at one of the main squares…
One of the main draws to visit Lille was to visit its 2 train stations (due to ones love for trains!). It goes without saying that both were fully wheelchair accessible…
It is worth noting that many restaurants, especially in the Grande Plaza contain steps at the entrance, no matter though (we are in Western Europe mind) as one of the waiters came out of the restaurant that we chose with a portable ramp…
After lunch, we decided take a walk around Lille and came across the citadel, it also contained a large park with a canal running alongside it, packed full of people and ALL accessible!
Tomorrow, we head to the capital of Belgium, Brussels, stopping at a town called Silly for lunch.