Blogs from Lyon, Rhône-Alpes, France, Europe - page 4

Bonjour à tous, Pour la cinquième année consécutive nous allons nous retrouver au travers de ce blog. Fini l'Amérique du Nord, bonjour l’Europe "du Nord". Un petit retour en arrière depuis que je vous ai laissé en août dernier. Le premier lundi de septembre c'est la fête du travail, au Québec donc un grand week-end, avec Suzanne et Pier, nous sommes allés au Nouveau Brunswick, à cette époque de l'année, c'est la province du homard, et en avons bien profités. Le week-end suivant avec les mêmes comparses, accompagné en plus de Catherine et Piere Fradin nous participions à l'un des plus grands festival Western du Canada à Ste Tite en Mauricie (Québec). Peu avant de quitter le Québec, j'ai réussi, à vendre, dans d'assez bonnes conditions mon "char", la décapotable blanche, après lui avoir fait parcourir ... read more

As I mentioned at the end of the last blog, Lyon is essentially the end of my visit to France (and Germany). After visiting so many great places and seeing so many stunning things, it was always going to be hard to get motivated here. 4 weeks is usually about my limit, and I like to go away for a bit longer than that so I’m keen to go home when the time comes. On Saturday morning, after having breakfast at the hotel, I returned to my room and went back to bed. I did eventually get up, but there were only a couple of things I really wanted to see in Lyon so I decided to put them off to Sunday. Instead, I headed out with my camera and just went for a walk. It ... read more

We left Chalon-sur-Saone at 7:30AM and had a very pleasant trip on the Saone River stopping in Macon at 1:50PM – a short day with only going through one lock today, but we did have to wait for a while to let a commercial barge go through first. This always adds a dimension to the calculations when trying to figure where to stop for the night. Fortunately with a short day planned we had plenty of “fudge” time. Today we saw plenty of swans as usual, but this time we saw a black swan which we hadn’t seen before while in France. There were also two pairs of storks spotted in the trees at their nests. We always try to keep our eyes open for wildlife sightings wherever we are. Even though we are on the ... read more

July 21 We almost missed today. Sinclaire, fortunately, was up and ready to go. At 10 am she woke us up. We took a walk to Les Halles de Paul Beaucuse – the most amazing market with fish vendors, meat vendors, cheese…and the most amazing pastries. We stopped for lunch at a fish restaurant. Sinclaire had escargot, I had salmon tartar, Glenn had oysters. Mmmmm… check out the food photos! A short walk to Old Lyon brought us to the funiculaire. The short ride up the hill was worth the three Euros. At the top is the Basilique – super old church…but not as old as the roman theatre, made around 200 A.D. Dinner was a La Maison Marie. She's the owner - her husband is a tennis expert.... read more

Today I explored Lyon. This city was not on my tourist radar before, but it turns out to have a number of interesting sights and a very good fine arts museum. First thing this morning I visited the Tourist Information office to buy a Lyon CityCard which gives me discounts to many sights and free use of public transportation. I used it right away to take the funicular up the hill to the Notre Dame Basilica, a church built to thank Our Lady for saving the city from the Prussians in 1872 (see photo of the church at the top of the hill). I forgot to mention that before I bought the CityCard I watched a bit of a "boules" tournament on the city square (see photo). I have seen the game being played many places ... read more