Lyon came up on our Skyscanner search for potential travel destinations when we needed to fill in a 'freed up' weekend with an overseas trip. One of the great features of the Skyscanner site is the ability to search target dates / months without a destination and be inspired (or driven by price) on what the search engine returns. So that is how we picked Lyon - a UNESCO World Heritage listed city and one of the gastronomical capitals of Europe. We did some further research before the trip and we noted that , Lyon was the one-time capital of Gaul - remember those Asterix and Obelix cartoon books?
Historic Lyon
Lyon is a pretty with cobblestone lane-ways that give your ankles a firm work-out whilst sightseeing around town. We followed the bronze plaques stuck on the walls of historic buildings by the Lyon tourist board and discovered one site, an old church that dates back to the time of Charlemagne; whilst a site with wooden balconies was from the 15th century when Lyon was the European capital of silk weaving
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| Pretty pink building |
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| Lyon is also famous for its traditional puppet shows |
Fourviere Hill
Lyon's main attraction is the Old Town area surrounding Fourviere Hill - the site of the original Roman settlement of Lugdunum (foundered in 43BC). Climbing up the hill took quite a while as we accidentally took the steeper and more scenic route, only finding the gentler meandering path on the way down.
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| Very happy to make it to the top of the Hill |
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| Many steps to the top |
Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourviere
On top of the hill is the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourviere, a beautiful building with a decorated interior that rivals many of the castles we have already seen in Europe. The inside had gorgeous stained glass windows, ornate ceilings and large ceramic mosaics decorating the walls.
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| Side view of the Basilica |
Next to the Basilica were the remains of two Roman amphitheaters that had been semi-restored for tourists to walk through and still had retained the original paved Roman roads.
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Standing on old Roman roads
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| Remains of the Roman amphitheatre |
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| Equipped with electric lighting, they are still used for plays |
Sweet Treats
At the bottom of the Hill and within the St Jean quarter within Old Lyon (Vieux Lyon), we found many Renaissance era buildings that hosted traditional Lyonnaise restaurants known as 'bouchons'. Also quite numerous were the shops specialising in traditional pastries - including a pink praline (a form of caramelised sugar) brioche, praline tart, praline covered almonds, macarons and 'cushions' of Lyon - a bright green marzipan square covering a chocolate fondant.
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| Pink praline pastries |
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| The Pirates Den with barrels of lolly jewels |
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| Jewellery (Bvlgari) water |
Protest Night
As we walked through the city on the Saturday night, we saw a protest of mainly women screaming through megaphones in French with police escorts, some carrying riot gear. Not keen to get involved in any left-wing anti-capitalist anti-Euro social unrest, we kept a safe distance and walked to the other part of town, watching the fluorescent pink gas of flares being lit up in a nearby square - a bit of excitement on a somewhat cold and sleepy night.
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| The pink gas from the flares during the protest |
Navigating around Lyon was fairly easy with a direct high speed tram service from the airport to the main city centre. The gypsy problem wasn't as bad as Paris, but we still had to watch out for beggars at the Metro station. From the main square, it was an easy walk to the central shopping district where our hotel was located, and then over the bridge to Old Lyon. Upon arrival at the hotel (Hotel Elysée) we noticed that English wasn't as commonly spoken as in Paris and our communication skills were tested when trying to check into the hotel. Luckily some hand-gestures sorted things out with translating "make sure to put the door keys into the drop box each time you leave the hotel."
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| Outside Hotel de Ville |
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| The Horse Fountain next to Hotel de Ville |
One thing we overlooked in choosing Lyon as a late November holiday spot was the fact that Lyon's geographic location puts it near the foot of Mont Blanc, the gateway to the French Alps and associated ski resorts. Late autumn in this area of Europe is quite cold. Whilst we were lucky to avoid actual snow falls, we did have most of the first day blanketed out by thick layer of fog. Thankfully, the French do mulled wine and crepes with nutella and banana very well; and on both days in Lyon we visited a little road-side cart to fuel up on these treats to warm us up.
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| The fog over Lyon |
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| Real snow in the city centre, brought in for a ski exhibition |
Gallo Roman Museum
On the Sunday we headed back up to Fourviere Hill to visit the Gallo Roman museum that had an extensive collection of Roman artefacts that had been discovered in Lyon. The collection included marble statues, floor mosaics, jewellery, glass, coins and even a model of ancient Gaul.
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| The lion of Lyon |
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| Roman marble statute |
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| Roman era wall mosaic found inside a nearby house |
For 7 euro per person entry, we felt that it was well worth a visit and by chance on the day we were entertained by a free jazz concert in the museum auditorium. However as the commentary was in French, we had no idea what was going on.
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| The jazz band that entertained us at the museum |
Lyon Food
Our post would not be complete without reference to the food we ate as Lyon is famous for its many Michelin star restaurants and traditional foods. We visited two Bouchons for traditional French cuisine including: snails, frogs legs (tasted like a cross between chicken and fish), tripe sausage (definitely not something we would try again), hot blood sausage (tasted like spam), pate and duck breast salad and a very unique clear jelly ham dish that Mei ordered but the waiter's limited English left us a bit bewildered about what we were really eating.
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| Pate and duck breast salad |
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| Fried frogs legs |
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| Snails are in the front, the unknown clear jelly ham dish is at the back |
Market Food
Lyon also has a food market that is open on Sundays and we stumbled on it whilst talking a walk along the river. It had many stalls selling local produce including cheese, meat, vegetables and racks of roasted chickens.
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| Tempting roast chickens and potatoes |
The smell made us very hungry, but the logistical nightmare of trying to eat a whole chicken whilst sightseeing put us off the idea. It wasn't until the last shop in the market where we found food being sold in individual portions. We wanted to buy a container of sauerkraut, sausage, potato and roast pork, however it was soon apparent that the stall did not expect you to eat the food on the spot as they did not provide any plastic cutlery. We decided to be resourceful and hatched a plan to buy oysters from another stall and keep the pair of plastic knives to use like chopsticks to pick up the pieces of sauerkraut.
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| Freshly opened oysters |
However, just when we thought our plan was fool-proof, Olie was a bit eager with using the knife with cold butter and hard bread and it snapped in half and landed on the floor. Undeterred, we still bought the serving of pork and sauerkraut and resolved to 'stab' at it with the remaining knife. Unfortunately, Mei's knife soon came to a quick demise, and we had no choice but to eat the rest of the food with our hands but the beautiful view over the river definitely made up for the messy meal.
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| Our pork, potato and sauerkraut dish eaten without cutlery |
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