Day 29 - From Strasbourg through Nancy onto Lille

Morning in Strasbourg

I woke up pretty early in my F1 hotel and took advantage by doing a bit of blogging.

I tried to use the communal shower but as it didn't work, I decided to get the hell out of there and make my way to the old town of Strasbourg, some 10 km away.

I parked in a multi-story and set off to explore at about 8am.

The cathedral (called Notre Damme, like its famous counterpart in Paris) is immense and very impressive.

I had a bit of frustration topping up my phone. Apparently you have to do this at a "Tabac" and they only open at 10 am. So I tried to find the Orange store in the city. Surely they'd be open and sell me a "recharge". Nope. Not until after 10am and there was already a queue outside and I've been in those before. Eventually I asked one of those newspaper kiosk places and sure enough, they did it.

I had a nice quiche and a coffee before going back tot he car park.

In yet another mini scare, I couldn't find the car! I'd exited the multi-story through a door that turned out to be a fire exit and couldn't be opened from the outside and when I went in through the normal way I got disorientated and couldn't remember where I'd parked the damn thing. Technology to the rescue. I marched up and down the many rows of cars, pressing the key button until eventually I heard the tell tale click and saw the flashing lights of the car. I managed to get out just before the 10 minute deadline and now with data access again on my mobile it was plain sailing to head north.

Ya Gret Nancy!

So, as I'd experienced another delay, I decided not to go to Luxembourg on my way north but instead, head for Nancy.

Call me daft but I am a sucker for place names. There's just something quaint about a place called Nancy, especially for a northern lad, so I just had to have a selfie there. On my way, I had visions of having my hair bleached blonde so I'd look Icelandic for the Paris quarter final. My hair was getting a bit "koala bear like" again and so I could do with a hair cut.

On the way, I noticed that just 6 km from Nancy is another irresistibly named town... Luneville. So I stopped there too. Couldn't resist.

Only lunatics can't resist taking endless selfies

So, having found a car park in Nancy, I found a shopping mall with a hairdresser and had another hair cut.

Not looking like a koala bear any more

yer gret Nancy

So, it was time for the massive drive to the northern city of Lille. I listened to my fantastic play list for a couple of hours. When Avril Lavine's song "Happy Ending" came on it reminded me of England. I started singing along with modified lyrics.

You were all the things I thought I knew
And I thought you should be

You were everything, everything
That I wanted, (that I wanted)
You were meant to be, supposed to be (champions)
But we lost it (we lost it)
50 years of hurt so close to me
Won't fade away

All this time I was pretending
So much for my happy ending
Oh, Oh,
So much for my happy ending
Oh Oh

Big drive across France to Lille

Football Analysis

Then I caught up with my podcasts. I listed to a great Five Live Episode previewing the quarter finals with Dean Saunders and three journalists, one Frenchman, one German and an Italian lady.

Hearing people like this, with their incredible inside knowledge of the game - the players, the coaches, the tactics - it makes me feel like I hardly know football at all. Dean Saunders was impressive too. I'd never heard him speak at length before.

The general consensus from them was that Poland, Germany, France and Belgium would make it to the semis, although Dean and one other fancied Wales and the French guy thought Italy would beat Germany and one thought Portugal would win through.

I think it'll be Portugal (Ok, I am writing this after the event but, honestly, I did think they'd win), Belgium, Italy and France.

It was fascinating to hear them talk about England's biannual exit from a major international football tournament. They'd had a 5 Live special on this which i'd listened to whilst driving through Switzerland. It had the usual - Chris Waddle and Danny Mills whining and whinging and ranting on in a "know-it-all" way. There are "no leaders in the team" and the "FA is rubbish" was pretty much their assessment.

So it was refreshing to hear a more intelligent analysis today. In a nutshell the three foreign journalists made much better points, in my opinion.

In what I took to be a thinly veiled attack on Danny Mills, the French guy said that some of the criticism of England since their defeat was "disgusting". He suggested that England's problem was a mental psychosis now. The pressure under England to repeat their 1966 has grown and grown to the extent that even players who we thought would be immune to this pressure (like Harry Kane and Delli Ali) soon get infected with it. He couldn't offer a solution.

The German, typically, suggested that it was just down to bad tactics. If England had prepared better they'd get over this.

The Italian lady suggested that the money of the Premier League was key. Most clubs now just act to buy success (or survival) whereas in other European leagues they focus on tactics and training to improve.

As all this was going on, I approached Lille.

Lovely Lille 

The SatNav made it easy to find my place and it soon became apparent that I've hit lucky here. I am typing this on a very nice desk in my very comfy bedroom. Just across the road is a Laverie - so I'll do another wash tomorrow, and it's just five minutes away from the metro line Merbrerie which is just three stops from the city centre. It's also got fast WiFi.

My place, walkable to the city center

The house to the right of the tree is where I am staying

I showered, got changed and headed to the city. And what a city it is.

I must admit my total ignorance of Lille. It's the 4th biggest city in France and, as one would expect, it's grand and beautiful. I didn't get chance to see much, as my priority was Poland v Portugal, but what I saw was lovely. Big grand buildings and squares.

Poland 1 Portugal 1 (Portugal won 5-3 on penalties)

As I arrived at the first place, Lewandowski scored to put Poland in front but the waiter would not let me sit in front of the screen being on my own, so I went off to find another bar where I watched the first half next to a table of England fans who didn't want to engage in conversation with me. Fair enough.

Poland had started the better team and Portugal looked rattled. But they calmed down and soon started to threaten themselves before Renato Sanches scored a beautiful goal on 33 minutes. At this stage I had visions of it opening up like the Hungary game in Lyon.

The beer at this place was the Belgian Grimbergen which is not my favourite (you always tend to get in Carlsberg places) so I decided to try to find somewhere else. This proved harder than I had thought as I was by the station with a limited number of bars. Professor Google told me it was a bit of a walk to the cool drinking areas so I headed off that way and so missed the start of the second half.

As a result I ended up with the same beer in a weird bar that had 5 big screen but no sound and this loud disco DJ mix music going on. To make things even more bizarre, every few minutes a bellow of smoke would be belched out in front of the screen so that the lasers would show up better. It made my eyes sting a bit - not as bad as tear gas but not pleasant.

Laser smoke about to obscure the view as loud music blasts my ears

Anyway, it had become quite a dull stalemate and when the game went into extra time, I dashed to my third bar to watch the extra time (and penalties).

This was more like it. Stone IPA on tap and a nice quite bar to sit at. 

It was a very tense game and by the end Portugal were clearly the better side and had created more chances. The game got a bit tetchy and there was a lot of fouling and rolling around in agony. Pepe, the Portuguese defender, who I thought played really well, at one point rolled around as if a saw had been applied to his shin. On the replay you could see he was definitely kicked but it was on his shin pad. Anyone that has played football will tell you if you get kicked on the shin pad, it doesn't hurt. That's why they're there (thanks to another innovation introduced by Nottingham Forest, by Sam Widdowson in 1874).

Sam Widdowson - Inventor of shin pads so players would have to pretend it hurts when kicked there

So it went to penalties and, in my opinion, justice was done when Portugal went through. They converted all five of their penalties but Blaszczykowski's (Poland's 4th) was saved so they didn't need to take their 5th.

After this I went looking for the best bar in Lille according to ratebeer.com - La Capsule. On the way, though I noticed a little place called "Kremlin" with a lot of Polish flags inside so I had to visit that. It's owned/run by the son of a couple of Polish immigrants. I had a nice chat with him over a visnowka and two krupnikases. Lovely!

Then it was onto Le Capsule where I had a couple more lovely beers chatting to a few locals about politics.

A krupnikas in the Kremlin - got to!

The great day ended on a sour note as the metro had closed and I had to get a taxi back here (should have walked). As I was a bit "tired and emotional" the taxi driver took advantage and ripped me off to the tune of 30 euros. Bastard!

Aljice

Lille .