LILLE - the Bradt City Guide
"No one can tell you all the madly dotty places to visit that tend not to make it into official publications."
- Kent Messenger
"A must-read guide for a must-see city"
- Living France
WINNER: BEST GUIDEBOOK 2004
Voted Best Guidebook by the British Guild of Travel Writers, it was universally hailed as the most comprehensive English language guidebook ever written to the city they call "The Paris of the low countries", when it was first published in time for the Lille 2004 European Capital of Culture celebrations.
The brand new and thoroughly updated 2015 edition is once again packed with reviews, stories and those invaluable listings for anyone spending a day, a weekend or a lifetime in this most enchanting city.
Well over 300 addresses alongside many personal asides and reflections on fabulous meals, enchanting hideaways and fabulous nightlife.
Discover the café transformed from a much loved lingerie emporium, some of the finest restaurants in the land and lots of serious shopping. New cultural destinations including the Saint Saveur Station, the only branch of the Louvre outside Paris and some amazing new public spaces,
New for the 2015 edition are some amazing restaurants (including chefs already tipped as one of the great gastronomic hopes for France's future) a railway goods yard converted into an exciting new public space to explore and some fantastic new self catering options for living like the locals in the heart of the city. So much new information that the book is twice the size as the first edition!
"Guidebook of the Year. We enjoyed Laurence Phillips' quirky writing style. A true love of France"
- British Guild of Travel Writers Awards 2004
READ A SNEAK PREVIEW: HERE
THE LATEST EDITION INCLUDES MORE THAN TWO DOZEN NEW ADDRESSES FOR FOODIES to add to the scores of mouthwatering resturant reviews that have already left readers of the first three sell-out printings of the guide drooling and axing the Atkins. In the 2015 guide, discover the ultimate gastromomic burger and find the hidden adresses where Michelin-starred chefs reinvent local dishes on their days off! and see fusion meet Flanders as Flemish tavern food gets a Pacific Rim makeover. All this and reviews of hotels that redefine luxury and style, and the ultimate morning after treatment as a factory is reborn as a Turkish Bath.
"Brilliant"
- Eastern Daily Press
"Perfect" -
Glasgow Herald
Learn why the male shopkeepers strip naked in the old town and how a statue of a goddess got the town gossips in a lather. Discover the sweet-toothed vice of a war hero, a grave planted with strawberries, roses, potatoes and vines and the nightclub where boys will be girls and girls will be boys.
Taste the local beers in artists' garrets, hear Don Giovanni sung across the way from the room where the young Mozart once stayed and enjoy onion soup at dawn after a night on the town. Outside the city centre, find a park dotted with genuine Picassos, an amazing art collection housed in an art deco swimming pool and lovers lanes on the rooftops. Complete with brand new specially-commissioned maps of the city centre streets and public transport network, the guide is a "Personal selection of around 300 amazing restaurants, bars, hotels and museums - all candidly reviewed with the usual combination of indiscreet gossip and blatant gluttony."
check out our exclusive online bonus features and updates HERE
The first Bradt guide to fit in your pocket, was also the first ever travel guide to be downloaded in its entirety to a palmtop or Nokia phone. - years before the arrival of e-books. The newest edition of the guide is now available as a KINDLE EDITION here
More on this pioneering guidebook at www.bradtguides.com Price £9.99
PARIS * LILLE * BRUSSELS:
The Bradt Guide to Eurostar Cities
GUIDEBOOK OF THE YEAR when it first hit the bookshops in 2002 and still voted NUMBER ONE in an online poll of European rail guides in December 2004, the first and only guide to the Eurostar Cities, the Bradt Guide is a compendium of anecdotes, and an address book with 1,000 addresses in Paris, Lille, Brussels and the Waterloo quarter of London: Mouthwatering accounts of memorable meals in unforgettable restaurants; favourite corners of each city, from the statue that Lille erected to its home-grown lullaby to a corner of Brussels where the spirit of Jacques Brel still lives and sings, the modest chapel in Paris, where the royal family were reassembled after the guillotine and the London Bankside of Shakespeare and Dickens. Discover where and how to commission your very own Renoir, a chef who invents a mystery meal for each new guest and an hotel grafted between the buttresses of a 16th century church. The handbook is a sought-after travel essential for city-hoppers, shoppers and foodies keen to discover the human side of Europe's liveliest capitals.
More at www.bradtguides.com price £11.95
"Essential reading... Smart Guide of the WEEK"
- The Independent
"Delight, It is of course our Book of the MONTH"
- Living France
"Guidebook of the YEAR"
- British Guild of Travel Writers
The press love it:
"Informative and entertaining", "Witty", "Fun to read", "Essential", "Chock-full of facts" "Equal parts diary, gossip and bedtime story"
"Enthusiastic" said the FT, "Take me with you" said Condé Nast Traveller and My Weekly advised "Don't travel without reading it"
"It's like having a friend who shares your tastes" - Antiques
"It will help you make the best of the time you have before you hop back on the train to London." - ABTA
The European press adored what they called "the personal story of the bond between a man and the places he loves", advising: "Quirky guidebook lovers should dip into Laurence Phillips Eurostar Guide
Taking his hand as he plunges into his Paris, its like having a friend who shares your tastes, especially when it comes to eating."
The experts agree: Stanfords book shops hails "Quality travel writing" noting "A committed Europhile, Laurence has written a personal, affectionate and witty guide to his favourite cities, all now within easy reach of London, thanks to Eurostar."
"Laurence Phillips is an entertaining travel companion with an infectious love of food, alcohol and anecdotes, and his personal comments are nearly always fun
The hotel, bar and restaurant listings are impressively thorough and, a rare thing in guidebooks, actually fun to read."
- The Bulletin, Brussels
BUY BOOKS BY LAURENCE PHILLIPS ONLINE : GREAT VALUE, CLICK HERE