Lyon - Day One

---

Today we depart the Uniworld River Royale, check out time is 8 am. We share a taxi with some other couples from the ship to the Gare (train station) and we are off to Lyon. I wasn't sure if we had to purchase a ticket or if we could just use our rail pass and the only girl working at the ticket booth didn't know the answer. We had a 9:13 am train to catch and we had to wait until 9 am for the supervisor to come and explain whether we needed to purchase tickets or we could just board the train. I was getting so nervous that I sent Michael to the platform (he had to walk down 2 flights of stairs, cross under the tracks and then back up 2 flights of stairs) to be ready to board the train as we only had 10 minutes before departure. As it turns out, I didn't need to buy a ticket, all we had to do was board and show them the rail pass. The train ride was a little more than an hour and on board we met a couple from Cleveland who were going from Beune to Cannes.
When we got to the Gare De La Part-Dieu in Lyon we navigated through the busy train station to the car rental area. Boy, did it take a long time to rent a car! We had to wait in line and then because I was declining insurance (I figured that between American Express and our personal car insurance we had enough coverage) I had to sign a waiver that if we were in an accident I would be charged for the full amount of the car, E13,000! Then they put a E700,000 hold on our American Express card.....that surely made us very nervous! Anyway, we got a 4 door, Fiat Punto that only had room for 1 suitcase in the trunk! We had to put 2 carry ons in the back seat. We got a local map, asked for directions and headed back towards Beune to visit the vineyards or Borgogne (Burgundy). Of course we got lost on our first turn out of the train station. They told us to turn left but we really needed to turn right, you will see that this pattern continues throughout our independent travel! After a frustrating 15 minutes of trying to get going in the right direction and navigating through streets that were on radius I finally told Michael to take the BUS lane and get us back to where we needed to be.....which he did and then we were on our way, through the busy streets of Lyon, headed over the Le Rhone and La Saone to the highway, A6. We had about a 2 hour drive back to the Cote D'Or, where we left from earlier in the morning. Had I realized that our final destination from the ship would drop us off at Chalon Sur Saone and not Lyon I might have made different car arrangements, but hindsight is 20-20 and we got to see the countryside from a different angle as we retraced our route back past Chalon Sur Saone. We stopped in a little town, Chagney on the Route de Grands Crus for lunch. We found a little square and a parking spot! We had lunch at a little brasserie, Au 9 G D'O where we sat outside watching children play in the fountains. It was a beautiful day and an adorable little town. For lunch I had Boeuf Bourguignon, the traditional local dish, and Michael had Cassoulet Escargot. We had a 50 cl carafe of house wine, a white burgundy. After lunch we found our way back to the Route de Grands Crus through Puligny-Montrachet and Meursault. We stopped at the Chateau De la Velle where we tasted 2 Mersault, neither that we were impressed with. From here we went to Ropiteau where we tasted 2 AOC 1er Cru, Mersault Charmes (E36) and Perrieres (E49). We enjoyed these wines but thought they were expensive. After this tasting we found our way to Chateau De Meursault which owns 60 hectares in Aloxe-Corton, Savigny-les-Beune, Beune, Pommard, Volnay, Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet, Corton Grand Cru, all situated on the Cote de Beaune. We toured the Chateau and were given engraved wine glasses for the 7 flightwine tasting at the end of the tour. What a Cave! The temperature always stays between 10-12 degrees celsius with a good amount of humidity. In one area alone we saw 180,000 bottles. In another area, 800 casks. The tunnels went on and on in all directions. At the end of the tour we tasted two white wines, Chateau de Meursalt 1er Cru and Puligny-Montrachet. Then we tasted the red wines, Savigny-les-Beaune, Beaune 1er Cru, Beaune Cent-Vignes, Pommard "Les Petits Noizons", and our Sommelier gave us an extra flight of Aloxe-Corton (my favorite).
We left this Chateau and drove through neighboring St. Aubin. From here we headed back on the highway A6 back to Lyon. As we approached the city we found a shortcut after the tunnel to try and save us some time to get to the hotel and did great getting through Place Bellecour over the Pont De La Guillotiere until we hit some major traffic. We ended up on a small street in the Muslin section of town. It was crawling with people and cars and we sat in a slow moving traffic jam for what seemed forever. Finally we made our way to the street we needed, Avenue du Marechal de Saxe which took us to the Parc de la Tete d'Or, and Quai Charles de Gaulle where our hotel was. We checked into the Hotel Lyon and were upgraded to an executive floor with a view of the Parc. I was surprised at how big our room and bathroom was! We even had a view of Notre-Dame de Fourviere. We didn't get to the hotel until after 8 pm and because I was starving we went to the Executive Lounge, which overlooks La Saone, were we started to have appetizers. However, our tiredness caught up with us and instead of venturing out for dinner we made a meal there of wine, cheese, pate, shrimp, curry wontons, gherkins, olives and bread. We took some wine back to our room and continued our picnic and added the Epoisse cheese we bought in Beune, an apple and some dried papaya that was given to us in our room. I couldn't wait to take advantage of a nice warm bath before falling into bed.

---