Place aux Oignons

The Place aux Oignons is a tiny, triangular square hidden in the heart of Old Lille, distinguished by the cluster of seventeenth-century brick houses crowding its edges. In the sixteen hundreds, this area served as a lively marketplace where farmers brought bundles of onions to sell to townspeople. When a fire threatened the neighborhood, local residents famously used their precious onion supply to beat back the flames, a desperate move that kept the square intact for the next three hundred years.