Adventures of David and Paul

Before my roller coaster tour started in France, I (Paul) had a little more than a day to visit the city of Lyon. I landed in Paris at 8am and after clearing customs caught a high-speed train to Lyon, arriving in the early afternoon. After checking in to my hotel (Hôtel Mercure Lyon Centre Beaux Arts) I went for a walk and a visit to the Beaux Arts museum while waiting for my friend Kyle to arrive on the next train.

Yay for high speed trains!

I took a bus from the train station to my hotel. Lyon has excellent transit.

View from my hotel window.

A pleasant street.

The church of Saint Nizier.

Scooters have taken over!

The Barthodli fountain.

City Hall.

Inside the Beaux Arts museum.

They had an Egyptian exhibit.

Art on the top floor.

I liked this one, called "the ricotta eaters."

Degas.

Lyon has a lovely setting on two rivers.

Lots of detail around the city.

A narrow touristy street in the old town, on the west bank of the Saone river.

The cathedral of St John the Baptist.

I then met up with Kyle and we took the funicular up the big hill on the western side of the city to the Basilica of Notre Dame of Fourvière. The façade was undergoing renovation, but it was still an impressive building and the interior was very ornate. There were also fantastic views over the whole city from the back terraces. Our next stop was the Lugdunum Roman site a short walk away. This is a site with some ruins and a big theater, as well as an impressive museum that is mostly underground. This area, with the combo of the basilica, views, and the roman site, is a must visit in Lyon.

We then took the funicular down, and walked around Vieux Lyon (the old town), stopping in the cathedral, having dinner, and finishing off with some ice cream. The ice cream place had really interesting flavors; I had mountain hay (yes, hay) and lavender. We then walked around a bit more before going back to our hotels to get some sleep - I was exhausted after hitting the ground running with not much sleep on the plane.

The basilica.

The impressive interior.

There were some really unusual mosaics.

I really liked this mosaic.

Overview of Lyon.

A model showing the locations of some of the old Roman buildings.

The main theater in Lugdunum.

The interior of the museum.

Hey look, it's me!

While mostly underground, the museum had these interesting portholes that looked out over the site.

An impressive mosaic.

Details on the front of the basilica.

Time to catch the funicular back down!

View looking out from the cathedral back toward the basilica on the hill.

The cathedral is known for its 17th century astronomical clock.

Lyon has a lot of extremely narrow alleys that give interesting views like this.

Cute lil shop doggie.

The ice cream place had flavors like mountain hay, smoked trout, and cedar pine nut.

Place des Jacobins, which was right next to my hotel.

A big pedestrian street.

This restaurant was all decked out for the World Cup.

Chapelle de l'Hôtel-Dieu de Lyon.

The next morning I started with an iced Americano from Slake and walked around a bit while the weather was beautiful. I met up with Kyle, and we walked to an area on the north side of the city known for murals. The direction we chose was unfortunately very much uphill the whole way, but we were rewarded with several full-building murals and views back to the city. We then took the metro to a tram to the Confluence Museum, which was a large modern museum at the confluence of the Rhone and Saone rivers. It had very well curated exhibits on a wide range of topics from zombies to climate change. We then caught the tram to the Paul Bocuse food hall for a late lunch where I tried quenelles de brochet, a local dish made from creamed pike.

That wrapped up our time in Lyon, as we had to catch a train to the airport to meet up at our first hotel of the organized trip, the NH Lyon airport hotel. That night I watched Egypt beat Australia in the hotel bar.