Lovely Lyon

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Day 21 continued (Thursday, September 17, 2009)

After leaving Seguret, we began the long drive north to Lyon. This magnificent city is sadly often overlooked on the tourist trail, with Paris and Nice being much more popular cities to visit. This is truly a shame considering that Lyon has much to offer to visitors, including multiple museums, gorgeous churches, diverse neighborhoods, pedestrian-friendly squares, and more restaurants to choose from than anywhere else I've seen in the world. Prior to our visit, even I was unaware that Lyon had multiple areas within its city designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, including Fourvière, Vieux Lyon, Croix-Rousse and a large part of Presqu'île. Unfortunately, with our tight sightseeing schedule, we had only been able to allow less than a full day in the city. In hindsight, we could have easily spent two or even three days touring lovely Lyon.

Upon arrival in Lyon, with aid from our navigation system, we were able to easily find Hôtel Best Western Lyon Saint-Antoine and the nearby parking garage. After checking in, we walked up to the room in order to drop off our bags. As we opened the doors to our room, perplexed thoughts came across both of our faces. The room was definitely the strangest set-up we had ever seen. Our room must have been located smack-dab in the middle of the building as we had no exterior windows. Instead, we had a tiny window with a view of the lovely fire escape, with absolutely no natural light coming in. The peculiarities continued with the bathroom set-up; we immediately saw the bathroom, although it only had a shower and sink. After much confusion, we finally opened what we thought was a closet door to see that there was a completely separate room for the toilet. We thought it was quite strange to have the bathroom fixtures located in different rooms on opposite sides of the hotel room, but because the room had obviously undergone recent renovations and was actually quite nice, we excused the odd set-up.

From the hotel, we walked into the streets of Lyon in order to look at the many different recommended restaurants that were listed in the guidebooks. Lyon is well-known around France as one of the gastronomic capitals of the country. This is in large part due to its many restaurants, or as they are called in Lyon, bouchons, which traditionally are small bistros which tend to specialize in just a few menu items for reasonable prices. Throughout the city, there are multiple blocks of streets which are famous for being lined completely with dozens of restaurants. One of these such streets is called Rue Merciere, which is located on Presqu'île, and just so happened to be very close to the location of our hotel. Since it was only in the early afternoon, most of the restaurants and bouchons were closed, but they all had menus posted outside their doors. After much debate, we decided that we would later eat dinner at a place called Le Bouchon aux Vins.

Afterward, we began looking for a bakery in order to buy a quick bite to eat as my hypoglycemia had kicked-in very suddenly. Unfortunately, although restaurants and bouchons were numerous, boulangeries were not, as we had a very difficult time finding any. Eventually, we did find one though it was a tad expensive, so I just purchased one item.

Next, we walked across Pont (bridge) Bonaparte in order to complete Rick Steves walking tour of Fourvière and Vieux Lyon. The city is lined with multiple bridges, and visitors should make a point to walk across at least a few of them, as they all provide amazing and panoramic views of Lyon.

After we had crossed the bridge, I saw a kebab shop and grocery store out of the corner of my eye. Still feeling a bit hungry and even more thirsty, we made a beeline for both. The kebab wasn't the best we had ever eaten, but it was only a few Euro, so no complaints.

Next, we took a funicular ride up to Fourvière Hill. Once off the funicular, we were greeted with an amazing view of the extremely ornate exterior of Notre-Dame de Fourvière. This gorgeous church appeared to be in pristine condition, with the whitest exterior I had ever seen that looked almost unreal against the bright blue sky. Back in 1870, the bishop of Lyon vowed that he would have a glorious church constructed as a tribute to the Virgin Mary if the Prussians spared the city. Coincidentally, a similar deal was also made in Paris, in which Sacré-Cœur, was created. Fortunately, the deal was made, and Notre-Dame de Fourvière was built between 1872 and 1896, with its design being based off of both Romanesque and Byzantine architecture.

After appreciating the many intricate details of the exterior, we headed inside the church. Surprisingly, the interior was just as impressive as the exterior, with colorful mosaics covering nearly every square inch of the ceiling, walls, and flooring. After touring the main chapel, we headed downstairs where we assumed we would see the crypt. Instead, we found ourselves in yet another chapel, this one done on a much smaller and less detailed scale, though just as beautiful in its own right.

From the church, we took a short walk to the Roman Theaters and Gallo-Roman Museum . Our entrance to the museum was free, since our visit happened to occur on Thursday, when anyone can enter for free. Unfortunately, we arrived only 30 minutes prior to closing, so we had a very short period of time to tour the museum, which is located on the former Gallo-Roman civilization of Lyon. The museum displays permanent collections of Roman, Celtic and pre-Roman items such as jewelry, vases, statues, and many other common everyday items. During our quick visit at the museum, I most enjoyed looking at the beautiful Roman mosaic floors, which I always find to be very intriguing.

Next, we quickly walked over to the ruins of the Roman Theaters. The larger theater could originally seat up to 10,000 people, but now sits about 3,000. The smaller theater (known as odeon) was once used to conduct speeches and songs in. In all honestly, neither one of us were overly impressed with the ruins. However, I'm sure that having just toured the very famous one in Orange had raised our expectations quite high.

Afterward, we walked to another funicular, which we rode down into the Vieux Lyon neighborhood. We walked through this charming area for about one hour, first stopping in at the Gothic St. Jean Cathedral which stands proudly in its own square. Next to the church were the ruins of an 11th century church which was destroyed during the French Revolution.

Next, we walked along Rue St. Jean, which has a very high concentration of well-preserved Renaissance buildings. During the 16th to 19th centuries, Lyon grew wealthy from its silk industry, which at its most successful time, had 30,000 looms. These lucrative looms financed the construction of the Renaissance buildings. Within the grounds of these Renaissance buildings, one will find the serpentine passageways (traboules) which connected Vieux Lyon's three main streets through quiet courtyards. We walked through one of these traboules, which felt a little strange, almost as though we were walking into someone's private property.

After our walking tour of Vieux Lyon, we went back to the hotel and relaxed for about an hour.

Finally, we headed out to dinner around 19:00. Since we had already decided earlier in the day where we were going to be eating, we proceeded straight to Le Bouchon aux Vins on Rue Merciere. Thankfully, since it was still fairly early out, we were seated immediately inside the restaurant. There were several great-sounding options on the menu, but I decided to go with the steak with poivre sauce with potato au gratin while Mike selected the Sabodet sausage Beaujolais style with green lentils. My steak was quite good, but the potatoes were even better! Mike enjoyed his sausage, especially the mustard cream sauce that accompanied it. For dessert, we ordered the crème caramel with puff pastry, which was tasty, but nothing exceptionally memorable. As we sat eating dinner, I began to regret not spending more time in the city, especially since there were so many different reasonably-priced restaurant options to choose from.

After leaving, we walked through the now crowded and lively Rue Merciere, which was filled with standing-room only restaurants.

Before heading back to the hotel, we walked over to the nearby riverfront, where I took a few shots of Vieux Lyon, which was lit-up beautifully at night.

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