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Published: April 25th 2009
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Lyon
View from the Basilique de Notre Dame gardens University classes officially stopped for spring vacations on the 9th and don’t start again until Monday, so I took advantage of all the free time and toured France and Italy with a couple of friends last week. I left on Monday and met Adam (from Erskine College in South Carolina) and Tyson (from Mizzou) in Lyon, France. They had been in Paris before that while I was in Sevilla, so they took a train to Lyon and I flew in from Alicante.
Lyon is a city of a few hundred thousand people and is an important industrial city for France, I believe. It’s not very touristic, but there were enough things to see to keep us occupied for a day and a half. Tyson’s sister studied there a couple of years ago, which was why we visited it, and she gave Tyson specific directions on what we should see. When I arrived on Monday, I met the boys in the hotel we were staying at and dropped off my things before we walked around town a bit. We saw a giant, open, barren plaza - not the most exciting but supposedly the biggest in Europe - and Vieux Lyon,
the old neighborhood by one of the rivers running through the town. That night we wanted to check out the nightlife, but we quickly found out it was nonexistent on a Monday.
On Tuesday we woke up early and hiked up the giant hill to the Basilique de Notre Dame - which by the way is the name of just about every church in France. It was a long jaunt, but the gardens surrounding the church were very pretty and the top of the hill had a beautiful view of the city below. The church itself was beautiful too, although I’m kind of “churched-out” here as far as travelling Europe goes. The walk down the hill was actually tougher than the walk up after looking at the church, so we decided some lunch would be good. We wanted to eat a typically French meal, not a Kebab, so we opted for spending a little extra money to sit down at a decent restaurant. Problem = no English menus. Tyson ended up getting a decent translation for what he ordered, but Adam and I didn’t think we needed to ask, seeing as we were ordering “casserole” - with seafood, chicken,
Marseille
View from the Basilique de Notre Dame curry, or mustard. Needless to say, we were very surprised when a bucket of mussels was put down in front of us. Definitely not what we thought it would be, but they were really good!
After eating, we wandered around the city a little more and when evening came, we thought we’d try out the nightlife again. This time we were more successful; we went to a bar in the university section of town and enjoyed the night. As far as finding our way around the city and asking for help, we all found the French to be very helpful and nice, which really surprised me. I had always heard they were very rude, especially to Americans, so I was a little worried. Our travels through France completely changed the stereotype I had for them though, although a couple of times we did get questionable responses when we said we were from the U.S. At the restaurant, when the waitress found out where we were from she gave us an “oh, that’s too bad” look and at the bar Tuesday night, the bouncer, upon hearing we were from the U.S., told us, “Tonight, you’re from Bulgaria.” Interesting… But Tuesday
night concluded our times in Lyon, and we got on a train to Nice Wednesday morning, stopping in Marseille for a few hours on the way.
We really didn’t know what to expect in Marseille; we’d heard the name before, but that was about it. When our train got in, we wandered down the main street from the train station to the port - realizing immediately that Marseille is a city of many cultures. It has a lot of African influence from the Ivory Coast, but more than that, I can only explain the atmosphere as huge mix of cultures. There were all types of clothing and food and people in the city center, something pretty cool to see. We ate at a kebab stand (poor college students) - they put French fries in the sandwiches - and then walked to a museum about WWII and the French resistance, that was covered in our guide book. That was disappointing because it was small and completely in French, but it still made me want improve my history knowledge - as most of Europe does. I think I need to make a huge list of things I need to Wikipedia when
I have free time 😊
Before leaving Marseille, we decided to see one more Basilique de Notre Dame - again, situated at the top of a giant hill, this one bigger than the last one. I wasn’t too enthused about another church and hill as we were walking up, but when we finally reached the top I was really glad we were there. The view was incredible! The Mediterranean, mountains, islands, and city all in one. We walked back to the train station after that and caught our train to Nice, my favorite city of the trip.
When we got to Nice, the first thing we did was check into our hostel. It was located in the outskirts of the city and a bit tough to get to, but it was worth the hike. It feels strange to rave about a hostel, but it was awesome. It was a former convent converted into a hostel with a huge central lounge area and overlooking loft where you could sit and hang out or eat delicious, cheap food. It had free internet access and breakfast too, the price was good, and all the people were really friendly. Most of the
travelers staying there were American and Canadian, but it was fun to meet new people and hear about others’ travels.
We just relaxed in the hostel once we got to Nice Wednesday night, but Thursday morning we had a long day of sight-seeing. In the morning, we headed down to the old city center with the flower and fruit market and port. It was full of colors and character - although it was raining outside. After seeing that, we took a bus to a former fishing village a bit outside of the main city called Villefranche. While there, we saw an old fort with a couple museums inside, its gardens, a picturesque port, and the narrow, quaint city streets. After seeing those things, we hopped on another bus to Monaco - just twenty minutes away.
I’d heard of Monaco before but not as anything more than a name. Tyson knew that it was a really small, very rich, tax haven country though, so we looked into it and decided to spend the afternoon there. Everything was luxurious and extravagant - especially the cars and mansions. Bentleys, Ashton Martins, Mercedes, you name it. They made BMWs look pidley. We
saw the Monte Carlo Casino and the Prince’s Palace too, but only from the outside. There was about an hour of sunshine when we were in Monaco, but by the time we got back on the bus to head back to Nice, it was raining again. Then when we got off the tram and started walking back to the hostel, it started pouring and eventually hailing. Lovely. We were soaked by the time we finally ran through the hostel gates, but it was definitely memorable.
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