Blogs from Lyon, Rhône-Alpes, France, Europe

April 29, 2012 Final Hours in Dijon We slept in until 10 am, still a little jet lagged, but getting better. We ate our croissants we purchased yesterday and just dinked around for a while. Took our time packing, folding the clothes we washed (they did finally dry the old fashion way) and getting ready to go. We were so tired last night we stayed in and just snacked on pate and cheeses we had purchased earlier that day after our lunch. It was all very good as were the three bottles of burgundy (2 red 1 white). In between blogging and eating I feel a sleep regularly. While Jerry finished getting ready I walked to the AMT to get the money to pay for the room. The room was a very good price for the ... read more

An early train ride from Marseille to Lyon results in about 5 hours of touring the city of Lyon before checkin at the Hotel du Helder. The alleged "gastronomic" centre of France, it hosts a large collections of ethnic foods, people, and cultures that are present in the diverse neighborhoods and foreign cuisine, that I was eager to experience.... read more

Ten hours on a train is brutal I must say, especially when your faithful Kindle recently decided to break down, taking all of your reading material with it. Who knew that self-entertainment would be so hard? So I left Biarritz in the small hours of the morning, no sun in sight. Walking up the hill towards the train station even the three dogs, who normally came sniffing and begging for a treat each time I walked by, preferred instead to snore lazily away while I trudged along. It's a desolate feeling, stealing away at night but truth be told the city barely notes your leaving. With a stop over in Bordeaux it was a grand total of 10 hours on the train. I don't know ... read more

Note: All events described in this entry occurred in December 2006. For updated entries and trip, please refer back to this blog at a later date. Any entry or trip that takes place in the present day does NOT include a note like this. Thank you! I had heard a lot about Lyon before coming to France, however I just wanted to go and see what it was like. I had heard that apparently the cuisine was quite famous and that there was a lot of history. I was able to take a TGV train from Dijon to Lyon, which took about 30 minutes to an hour. As soon as I arrived I used the information from the guide book I bought at Dijon's train station in order to use Lyon's metro system. Lyon has a ... read more

The Chateau! Oh the Chateau! The Contiki Chateau is a castle nestled into the Beaujolais wine region in France, with the most amazing view. With beautiful grounds and a massive pool, from anywhere on the grounds you can see for miles out over the wine country. They’ve also converted the old wine cellar into a pumping night club. The place is just impressive, the kind of place where you never get tired of saying “This is awesome!” So the first night was a themed party, tight and bright, and well I had a tight bonds singlet but nothing that was bright. The solution, a bright pink bra with a pair of work socks for some additional cleavage (thanks Brit). The night was absolutely awesome, one of those nights where it was all awesomeness and no regrets ... read more

Well, we woke up to an overcast day. But that's ok cuz we had planned to go into Lyon which we knew would be mainly indoors. At first, we went to the TGV (train de grande vitesse) station outside Valence, but when we discovered the cheapest fare for the mere 30 minute train ride was 120 Euros (gulp!), we drove to Lyon instead. We parked at a P&R outside Lyon and hopped on the Metro (only 6 Euros). Bought our city pass and found a lovely terrace to eat lunch. Nigel tried the beef snout and veal hoof as an appetizer and had pork marinated in red wine for a meal with cheese afterward. I had a salad and steamed sausages and creme caramel for dessert. There was a bottle of wine of course (unidentified house ... read more