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Published: June 28th 2007
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Eliza had a rough night’s sleep last night and kept us up most of the night. I ended up getting up with her around 7:30 and heading off in search of breakfast. We found a farmer’s market right down the street and got a huge bag of bananas and oranges for 5 euros. We then found a patisserie and got some pastries for breakfast as well. I went for a short run up and down the Saone river. The part of Lyon where we are staying is bordered by the Rhone on one side and the Saone on the other. When I got back we all got ready and went to explore the town. We walked up the river and over one of the pedestrian bridges. There are lots of bridges crossing the Saone river and every other one is a pedestrian bridge with a different design. We wandered through the old part of town (vieux Lyon) through alleyways and eventually stopped for more pastries. Jonathan, Abigail and I shared an incredibly tarte pomme and Emma and Eliza shared a chocolate chip cheesecake. We went through the beautiful Cathedral St. Jean which had a really neat astrological clock inside.
One of the highlights of the day for the kids was riding the funicular up to the Basilica Notre Dame de Fourviere. The church itself was quite imposing and the inside was all mosaics with gold in-lay. It afforded an amazing view of the city as it stretched out in front of us. At this point the kids were in need of something more substantial than French pastries so we went down the funicular in search of one of the amazing looking sandwich shops we had passed earlier. We got a cheese quiche, a four cheese panini and a grilled chicken sandwich that had tomato, lettuce and sauce for all of us to share. YUM. We lunched in a playground that looked through some 4th century Roman ruins at the backside of the St. Jean Cathedral.
After lunch we headed back to the apartment. Eliza took a nice nap, and so did Jonathan. Abigail and Emma worked on their scrapbooks. When everyone woke up we had a nice snack of bread, cheese, veggies and wine. Then we took a walk around a different part of town. We found a huge fountain (always a hit with the kids) by the
Lyon Playground
We lunched in this playground. Behind it is St. Jean's Cathedral. Hard to see, but between the playground and cathedral are Roman ruins of a 4th century baptismal structure. same sculptor that did the Statue of Liberty. We wandered back to the old part of town and discovered that most of the restaurants did not start serving dinner until 7pm. With an hour to kill we went back to our lunchtime playground to let the kids play. I went back to the hotel, which was a five minute walk, to get the remainder of that afternoon bottle of wine. We enjoyed that in the park while the kids played and then went to dinner. Dinner itself was quite good and quite French. Emma and Abigail each had a kids meal (omlette for Abigail, chicken drumstick for Emma). Jonathan and I got the prix fix menu which included a starter (Jonathan’s French onion soup was amazing), a main course (both equally good with thick cream sauces, mine a mustard based) and wine. We ended up the evening walking to the Nacht Winkel and getting the kids ice cream cones. We promptly returned to the apartment and all fell fast asleep!
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