Lovely Lyon

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So having already spent two nights at my AirBnb place, I finally decided to see Lyon properly. I arrived too late on Thursday to go to the tourist office, so I just wandered around Place Bellecour (where the main tourist office was) and walked to Vieux-Lyon. Friday I spent in Le Puy, but managed to snag a map at the Vieux-Lyon tourist office. Again, I didn't do much more than look around and get some food. Saturday was the day to really dig in to Lyon's tourist sites.

I decided to get a Lyon City pass. It was a bit pricey, but gave me two days to use the public transit system (unlimited), take a guided tour, go on a boat cruise, and visit a bunch of museums. I'm sure that over the two days I have gotten my money's worth. Saturday afternoon I took a guided tour of the traboules (little passageways between narrow side-by-side buildings, linking them front to back) and visited two museums.

I was going to visit one of the museums before the tour started, but the skies decided to open up and it POURED. Not just a rainstorm, but a thunderstorm that teemed down heavy rain for a good half hour. I took cover in the Cathédrale St-Jean. That would have been a lot more interesting had it not been under renovation. Oh well.

It fortunately stopped raining before the tour, which is good since it was a mostly outside walking tour. It was 2 hours of French history and fact-telling, and I understood most of it. (Yay!) I'm quite pleased with that since I hadn't really been able to chat with my hosts. The guy of the couple is pretty distant, and not around much, and I haven't met his wife yet, three nights in. Weird.

Anyway, after the tour I went up to the Roman ruins (amphitheatres) and there was a band practising for that night's concert. Seems they've restored the amphitheatres to be used for summer concerts and shows.

I then went to the Miniature and Cinema museum. It was pretty neat. The miniatures were not my cup of tea, but the movie artifacts were cool. I saw Harry Potter's wand, C3P0 from Star Wars, and other movie props/costumes. They also had some shadow pictures that I thought were really fantastic.

After that I went to the Guignol museum. Guignol is apparently a puppet from long ago, much like Punch and Judy, I think. They had various puppets and marionettes, and it was a bit creepy. Glad I didn't pay for that and it was covered by my City pass!

I then went to see some wall paintings. I ended up renting a bike (like Toronto's Bixi bikes) from an automated bike stand, and cycled around for a while. That was pretty cool. Until I tried to return it! You can take it to any bike stand to return, assuming, of course, it has a free slot open to reconnect it to the stand. I went to 5 or 6 different stands looking to return it, and spent a good half hour doing that. Did I mention that it costs by the hour? Good thing I only got dinged for that half hour. My city pass gives me three days of 1h free for 3 Euros. Not too bad, all in all, I guess.

By the time I dropped off the bike it was dark, so I took some night photos of a few of the buildings. The bridges are also lit up at night and make for some pretty views. After all that walking (and cycling), I headed back to my room.

Today, Sunday, I decided to take a morning river cruise. It went along the Saône River, up to a new bridge they're building (making it number 31!), and then back down to the confluence (almost to where it meets the Rhône). The boat ride was fairly interesting. It would have been better had I realized right away that there was open air seating up top, and I had gotten a seat on the edge instead of the middle. Oh well, live and learn!

Next I went to the Resistance and Deportment Historical Museum. I'm not sure if that's quite the right translation, but basically a museum about WWII, situated in the former Gestapo headquarters. There were two main exhibits: one in both English and French, that had artifacts from the war (letters, uniforms, photos, and other possessions that were from private collections, detailing personal experiences from the war; the other was only in French with video clips from survivors, telling their experiences, and showing how the Resistance got involved. There was a lot to take in on the subject. My head was full about halfway through.

After taking a tram back to a metro station, I decided to walk over to the next museum. It was so hot, and I was feeling like I had gotten too much sun on the boat cruise, so another museum would keep me out of the strong rays of the sun! This museum was of automatons. They had various scenes of small, moving figures, such as Peter Pan, Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Sherlock Holmes. Again, pretty neat to see, though if I hadn't had the City Pass, I don't know that I would have gone in.

I walked over to the funiculaire and rode it to the top of Fourvière to see the inside of Notre Dame. I didn't get to see much though, as a mass was just starting.

On the way back to my room, I stopped to see a few more painted walls. I found one, but not the other one I was looking for. Those wall murals are pretty interesting. They take an entire wall of the building and paint a scene on it!

I returned to my room with the intention of taking a nap, but my host was in a chatty mood, so I talked with him for about half an hour. It was more like him talking and me listening, as I realize more and more, how poor my oral French has become. I really need to work on that!

Anyway, off to Frankfurt tomorrow!

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