Stella and the Lille

(Week of 4/25 – 5/2)

(The Stella Factory)

Stella Artois

The group in the yeast adding section of the brewery

Joaquin, Chase, Liam, Me, Matt Shaw

Another perfect brew

(Lille)

The black dots are Austrian cannonballs lodged in the facade

Memorial to WWII

The Citadel NATO base

The half modern half historical Cathedral

The main square in Lille

Liam and I

Me, Liam, Stefano in front of the Porte di Paris

Lille University

The Palace of Justice

The Grand Place

The Grand Palace

The Liam in front of the "L" shaped modern architecture building

“Sure you can help me, can you tell me what that is?” I said pointing over his shoulder at the modernized metal gates that covered the opening to barracks area of the 17^th century citadel. The five-star fort had caught our attention from the first moment we looked at a map of the small northern French city of Lille (we figured putting a fort that big on a map that small must its fair share of Americans to the outskirts of the city – I guess we’re just suckers for cool war memorabilia). However, this fort wasn’t exactly like the ones we had seen in the past.

“What is that?! What is that?! I work there!” Sergeant Morris responded to my seemingly senseless question. As he patted me on the shoulder, the grin on his face widened so much that it was from ear to ear, almost seeming out of place with the rest of his camouflage wardrobe – “Army Ranger” stitched onto a patch on his chest. “It depends on who you’re asking. If you ask a Frenchmen, it’s a French fort with NATO capabilities. Anyone else, it’s a NATO base.”

We stood chatting with Sergeant Morris for a couple more minutes on what used to be the old draw bridge for the 1686 fortress which guarded the city. He asked us about our studies and our time in Europe and in turn pointed us to a couple of the hot spots of the city before bidding us farewell – happy to have helped a pair of Americans and their Italian friend explore the city within a rocks throw of the Belgian border.

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The week following our return home from Italy was a bit of a hectic one for the Loyola crew. The two weeks we had off were supposed to time spent studying and catching up on work for most of the internationals in the huis. However, for us, it was an amazing vacation through beautiful Florence and Rome. As a result of that vacationing though, we were forced to hit the ground running the week we got back – which was a more difficult task seeing as how we didn’t arrive back in Leuven until 4:30am on Monday morning after sitting on a bus for nearly a whole day. Needless to say, we were a bit lagged from out travels.

The first weekend back from break, Tim, Francesco and I were supposed to travel see the capitol of Norway, Oslo. However, with the exhaustion from our time in Italy coupled with the fear that we could traveling north would lead to us being stranded in Norway due to the volcanic ash, we decided to play it safe and cancel the trip – which of course resulted in there being no volcanic disruptions all weekend.

However, because of the cancelled trip, the following week, I was itching to see some new stuff. This began when I joined up with Unit 5 for their unit activity: touring the Stella factory. The Stella factory tour provided very interesting insight into the Stella Artois beer making process. In addition, we learned a lot about the history of the brewery and its significance to the city of Leuven.

Some of the more interesting facts that I can recall are as follows: Stella (which comes from the latin word for “star” and denotes the beers bright color) Artois (the last name of the first master brewer at the factory) was originally produced by the Leuven company as a winter beer. However, its popularity quickly grew and it became the primary product of the brewery. The horn on the Stella emblem is a hunting horn based on the fact that in the old days Leuven was a large hunting community. The first beer producers in were women, who would make the brew in order to provide a means for the hunting men to keep warm. And finally, the Stella Brewery in Leuven is responsible for producing all the international sales to the United States. That’s why the bottles of Stella in America are green (symbolizing one way transit) while the ones locally are brown (meaning can be returned and refilled).

Needless to say, the group thoroughly enjoyed the touring and learning about the beer making process. I think we especially enjoyed the Stella Bar which overlooked the bottling sector and allowed us all we could drink for a half an hour at the end of the tour.

The following day, Liam, Stefano (Liam’s roommate from first semester who was in town visiting and wanted to travel) and I were up early to see the city of Lille. Lille is a small French town just over the boarder of Belgium. We arrived by about noon and set out to explore the city. We figured out best plan of attack was to walk to the outskirts of the city and move back toward the train station. Therefore, we began our trip by traveling out to the giant star shaped fort, which turned out to be a NATO base (described above).

After our exchange with a fellow American, we headed through the city following his instructions. Lille was an interesting mix of French, Flemish, and modern architecture. Many of the main squares are modeled after the Belgian style and most of the buildings in those square have Flemish facades. However, once you get outside of the heart of the town, the French influence becomes more evident as buildings such as the Royal Palace and Palace of Justice take on a more fancy French design. The modern architecture stems from just about the same reason that there are modern glass buildings anywhere in Europe – the Nazi’s bombed it.

In addition to its rich multicultural architecture, the city of Lille also has an intricate history. The city dates back to 620 AD and is even recorded as a settlement under the Roman Empire. In addition, Lille, with its heavy fortifications has taken a part of nearly every military engagement in Western Europe since the 1600’s. Following the French Revolution, the Austrians tried to march on Lille, and were unsuccessful, though the scars of their advance are still evident as several 1840’s cannon balls are lodged in what is now known as the La Place de General DeGaulle in the main town square. In WWI, the city was able to hold off the German advance for 9 days by tricking the German army into believing the city had more artillery than it actually did. When the Germans realized they had been fooled by one 1 large gun, they stormed the city and burned an entire section. In WWII, the city was occupied from 1940-1944, and was liberated by British, American and Australian troops.

Overall, our time in the Lille was spent strolling around the small city just taking in the culture and lifestyle. It wasn’t a big name place with many sites to see, but we didn’t seem to mind because our laid back mentality gave us more time to soak in the small-town European culture of little ole’ Lille.