Flaneuring in France 2017: Lyon,,,,,not exactly lounging around!

Monday 15th May

As I write this at 5,30pm, Tony is having a siesta in bed and Ewan is stretched out on the couch having a power nap and Liz and I are doing nothing much. All of this lethargy is due to a very active day hitting the high spots (literally !) of Lyon.

The apartment is on the second floor but there is a LIFT!!

Ewan and I arrived at the apartment after about three hours of driving from Marseille straight down a major highway - we sacrificed the back roads for the sake of time. With a couple of stops at the Parcs (Autostops) - one for for coffee and pastries and the other for cash to pay the road tolls - we arrived and managed to negotiate the many rivers of Lyon to find the car park near the apartment.

We spent a quiet afternoon rambling around in the sunshine, walking to the Paul Bocuse market only to find that it had closed early, and trying to find a good restaurant for dinner and checking out the shops. Lots of shops and restaurants don't open on Sundays so our choice for dinner was a bit limited, until we found a street with lots of outdoor seating and food offerings ranging from kebabs and burgers to 'bouchon', the traditional Lyonnaise restaurants. They specialise in offal so we were a little wary of some which seemed to have a lot of tripe and blood sausage on the menu.

We returned to the selected one - Le Layon - and had a delightful meal, although somewhat dampened by rain towards the end! Liz and I bravely ordered pike quenelles (a big fluffy dumpling) in crab bisque whilst the males ordered duck. All of it delicious, and served by a young waiter who had spent 6 months attending Trinity College in Kew as a student. Ewan was concerned that Liz and I were not taking our research into the best creme brulee seriously enough, so when we didn't order one, he did. We were forced to share it and it rated highly.

Duck in honey with celeriac mash

The fish quenelle is the large golden dumpling sitting the the middle of crab bisque! Delicieuse!

This morning we were off to climb up the steep hill to the Basilica ( Basilique Notre Dame de Fourviere) as our first fitness challenge of the day (...and there were many!).

The stairs were numerous and very steep, but we all made it and the boys enjoyed the view ( aka resting their weary legs) whilst Liz and I wandered around the Basilica. From the top you can see thousands of chimney pots and terracotta roofs, as well as some huge buildings.

I had forgotten how beautiful the interior of this Basilica is. The intricate tile work in beautiful - soft greens and blues with muted gold tiles to make everything shine. Not ostentatious at all and very calming. A woman came past and told us they were Murano tiles. Ewan and I have been to Murano Island, just near Venice, so it was pleasing to see how lovely they were here.

Next fitness challenge was to get back down the hill so we strolled down a meandering path in the park area below the basilica and found a coffee place where we shared a galette and crepe with a strong coffee to reward our efforts.

Note the nice wide riverside path for cycling!

Revived we hatched a plan to get to the MAC - Museum of Contemporary Art. Liz was not going to cycle there after her traumatic experiences when she cycled around IIle de Re (see previous blog) where she had a slight altercation with two gorgeous French cyclists and then a parked car. After spending some considerable time trying to understand the complicated system for hiring the public bikes, we were about to give up when a young Frenchwoman gave us a hand. Eventually Ewan, Tony and I set off to ride and Liz went on the trolley bus.

I had agreed to cycle after a careful perusal of the map and an understanding that we were going to cycle along the wide bike paths on the very flat riverbank. So it was very easy cycling, the sun was shining, the path was quiet, the breeze was blowing, all was well with the world until....we met Liz there and realised that the MAC was not open on Mondays!! Not one of us, despite several versions of Lonely Planet, multiple electronic devices etc etc had bothered to check!
All was not completely lost as there was a cute lunch cafe next door so we consoled ourselves with sustenance and a quiet sit.

After checking whether other places on our list of 'things to do in Lyon' were open, we decided to visit Croix Rousse which had been the centre of the silk-weaving industry in Lyon a couple of centuries ago.The next fitness challenge was to ride the bikes almost back to where we had started, This time Liz walked.

The three cyclists did a tour of a beautiful large leafy park - the Parc de la Tete d'Or - complete with enormous lake before heading for the Bridge near the Opera House to meet Liz.

At this point Tony's legs were over it and then Liz threw water over him when he was rude to her about her lack of interest in cycling, In a nutshell he commented that we had seen other people riding bikes in skirts which was her best excuse for not riding. Tony decided to head for home and we decided to walk up ,,,and then down.... the steepest part of town.

You may be wondering why we would take on this particular fitness challenge and that is a question that is hard to answer in retrospect. We were following advice from the LP to find some old secret passageways and stairways used by the silk weavers and to admire the old buildings from which they worked. We kept going higher and higher up lots of stairs and without seeing any interesting architecture. Most of the old buildings have been turned into modern apartment buildings and are not very interesting. There were some little treed squares with small cafes interspersed among the buildings , but that was it.

The secret door into the staircases

View from the door

The restored staircases

We finally managed to locate one of the old sets of stairs - 7 storeys -of them but they didn't lead anywhere secret so we had a look and headed down the hill to negotiate more stairs and steep streets, with our bodies aching and tired.

Any wonder everyone is resting before dinner!

Later:
Somewhat revived we headed out for dinner but ended up having a cheap meal at a cafe opposite one of the 'bouchons' recommended to us. We booked in for tomorrow night so all good.