note from a local : don't take your car, the roads are a bitch and they've put no-way streets every two minutes, parking is an expensive hell also, something that frustrate both me and my soon to be historian niece is that there is this wealth of historical stuff from a lot of different periods and the city doesn't do that much to take care of it (however it does seem to change a bit) if you visit the pont des trous, know that it is what it looked like back then, it was built at the turn of the 14th century but got mostly demolished in a bombing during WWII (half of the old city was flattened out during the war) they rebuilt a replica of it in the 50s and about five - ten years ago, a big project to widen the scheldt to make a big waterway linking paris to the north sea meant they needed to broaden the bridge, since the buiding is mostly contemporary it couldn't be classified so they got the right to take it down, they talked of a big metal and glass fixture that would keep the pillar that is original and the big arches would be represented in a minimalist way, for some political reason they decided to make a big stone bride in a similar style to the original. I assumed it was a replica of what it looked like in 1320...But apparently not... I find the new bridge really pretty but, yeah, it's not what it looked like i would advise, if you're visiting in summer to go on the first sunday of the month: on the first sunday of every month museums are free in wallonia (and apparently Brussels as well but not Flanders i believe) and between May and September, they put up a big artists market on the square of the Cathedral (which is also where the Medieval Market is set up) one sunday of the month, this year in july it fell on the first so i decided to visit the city on a sunday (never been on a sunday) and the creepy don't-trust-thy-neighbour vibe of week nights and rushed don't-talk-to-me vibes of weekdays turned into the charitable vibrant party vibes i remember my schoolmates for. oh and the neverending renovations on the cathedral now include a building next to it that will be turned into a big visiting and lounging area that looks like a pleasent place to stay (hopefully that zone won't turn into a criminality hub, nor into a super private overpriced place, but only time will tell)
.Thanks.
note from a local : don't take your car, the roads are a bitch and they've put no-way streets every two minutes, parking is an expensive hell
also, something that frustrate both me and my soon to be historian niece is that there is this wealth of historical stuff from a lot of different periods and the city doesn't do that much to take care of it (however it does seem to change a bit)
if you visit the pont des trous, know that it is what it looked like back then, it was built at the turn of the 14th century but got mostly demolished in a bombing during WWII (half of the old city was flattened out during the war) they rebuilt a replica of it in the 50s and about five - ten years ago, a big project to widen the scheldt to make a big waterway linking paris to the north sea meant they needed to broaden the bridge, since the buiding is mostly contemporary it couldn't be classified so they got the right to take it down, they talked of a big metal and glass fixture that would keep the pillar that is original and the big arches would be represented in a minimalist way, for some political reason they decided to make a big stone bride in a similar style to the original. I assumed it was a replica of what it looked like in 1320...But apparently not... I find the new bridge really pretty but, yeah, it's not what it looked like
i would advise, if you're visiting in summer to go on the first sunday of the month: on the first sunday of every month museums are free in wallonia (and apparently Brussels as well but not Flanders i believe) and between May and September, they put up a big artists market on the square of the Cathedral (which is also where the Medieval Market is set up) one sunday of the month, this year in july it fell on the first so i decided to visit the city on a sunday (never been on a sunday) and the creepy don't-trust-thy-neighbour vibe of week nights and rushed don't-talk-to-me vibes of weekdays turned into the charitable vibrant party vibes i remember my schoolmates for.
oh and the neverending renovations on the cathedral now include a building next to it that will be turned into a big visiting and lounging area that looks like a pleasent place to stay (hopefully that zone won't turn into a criminality hub, nor into a super private overpriced place, but only time will tell)
do we just drop Q&A questions here in the comments?