Take the ferry to France for a shopping trip to Lille

Go shopping in France and you’re likely to pick up a bargain or two, you’ll find many different things to choose from, and going by car means you can take advantage of all those bargains! One such place close to home is Lille. If you travel by ferry to France, you’ll find the Calais ferry will take an hour and a half and the easy journey from the Calais ferry port takes about an hour.

Apart from supermarket shopping, there’s a Carrefour with 62 checkouts, you’ll find shops selling bric-á-brac and antiques as well as factory outlets for things typically French, such as Le Crueset, along with clothes from some of your favourite designers.

Shopping in Lille is great whatever the time of year. There’s food bargains galore at Wazemmes, as well as bazaars and discount shops in the Rue Gambetta, and in September Europe‘s largest street market can be found at the Braderie. At Christmas the city comes alive with hundreds of Christmas market stalls and events.

For fashion the cool place to go is Faubourg des Modes, and at Euralille shopping centre you’ll find more than 150 stores, while at Roubaix there’s some 85 factory outlets selling men’s, women’s and children’s clothing, lingerie, sportswear, household linen, shoes, luggage, furniture and much more. There are over than 200 brands including Adidas, Aigle, Agnès b, Descamps (household linen), Diesel, Dim, Designers Guild, Kenzo, Levis, Nike, O’Neill, Puma, Ralph Lauren, Tissot, Umbro...to name but a few!

McArthur Glen is another factory outlet, also in Roubaix, and is the place for designer label clothing such as Christian Lacroix, Nina Ricci, Cerruti, and Petit Bateau, Adidas, Nike and Reebok, Lee Cooper, Calvin Klein, Sonia Rykiel, Pierre Cardin, Balmain, Weil and Lacoste...well, you get the idea? 

Marques Avenue is close to Calais ferry port, and sells men’s, children’s and women’s fashions; lingerie; sportswear; shoes; luggage; household linen and small kitchen appliances.

There’s Cristal d’Arques for glassware, tableware, cookware and gifts. You’ll probably know the name as they own brands such as Luminarc, Arcoroc and Pyrex, plus Studionova and the upmarket Salviati. The shop at Arques sells all the brands they manufacture, and you can get excellent prices for seconds and end of lines. If you like you can go on a factory tour, but it’s recommended you book in advance.

Of course when you have the car you don’t need to worry about carrying all those great bargains home as there’s no restriction on the cross channel ferry!

There’s a book market in the middle of the Vieille Bourse courtyard and one of Europe’s largest bookshops, Le Furet du Nord, has a good selection of English language books.

There are of course many specialist shops for patisserie, chocolates, cheese etc. and you’ll have great fun just tasting what they have on offer. For cheese try Philippe Olivier, a great ‘fromagerie’. Enjoy your trip!