Lyon

 

Very unusual shower head in the ceiling.  Jeanne figured out how to get it on.  

Jeanne and I went down at 7 am for a very light breakfast since the 4 of us would be having a food tour later.

We met down in the lobby at 9 am to explore.  We walked along the river Saône. The Rhône river is on the other side of the hotel.  

Place de la Republique last night.

Place de la Republique this morning.  Quite a difference.

We wandered through a market that was all along the Saône.

We were on our way to find the 30 foot mural.

Eloge de la contemplation - Philippe Ramette 2025. So it is pretty new. (Praise of contemplation)

I think that we have found the mural.

Yup. Here it is.

Wow.  There is more. Fresque des Lyonnais. (Fresco of the people) Created in 1994-95 but they do have to update/repair it regularly.

I zoomed in on many of them but there are too many to post.  Here are a few.  There are 30 well known French people.  There is a key of who is who. I am not posting that.  

Here are a few on different buildings

Very impressive.  

We crossed over the river and walked along the other side through an art market.

Pedestrian bridge

Finally we found a place to sit down near where the food tour was to begin.  It was at 11:50 am.

We saw people from our group in the food tour right before us. Mia, Connie, Michel, & Jill the 4 people on the right.

Oliver was our tour guide.  He was from UK but he has lived in Lyon for 15 years.  He was funny and informative. We had 12 people in our tour.

He talked about the puppets and how important they were.  A guignol is a traditional French hand puppet, a puppet show similar to Punch and Judy, or a theatrical performance featuring shock and horror. In everyday French slang, the word is also used to describe a clown or a fool.

The Petit Musée de Guignol

First stop was for a" traditional Lyon breakfast called a machôn," a plate with local salami, cheeses, and a local salad dressing on the salad. My favorite cheese was a Saint-Macelline.

Red wine, Beaujolais, came with the breakfast, as well as bread.  There was plenty of food but we did have to remember to pace ourselves.

Saint Jean Delices - look like cobblestones.

Chocolate inside

Pralines Degustation Lyonnaises.  They also had these in the hotel.

We learned about the secret passages, or traboules.  There had been about 200 of them, but now there are only about 80 that are available to the public.  We went into the longest one.  They were used a lot during the war.  

Croquant Praline, I think.

We hung out at some ancient Roman ruins while Oliver called the next restaurant with our food orders.  We had 4 choices at Chez Brachon: cheese ravioli, pike quenelle, sausage and ratatouille, and a salad with egg and lardon.  

Kris and I chose the ravioli. It was delicious, but more than enough.  Jeanne had the sausage, Sharon had the quenelle.  

Another pastry, a brioche with almond pralines in it.

Our final treat was the green pillows.  The joke about Lyon and sweets is that they can turn anything into a dessert.

10 iconic foods to try in Lyon.  We had almost all of them by the time we left.

We headed back to the hotel for some down time.  I noticed that they had 2 of the traditional sweets around at the hotel.

At 5:30 pm we met and walked to where we got the funicular to go up to Notre Dame. 

We went around to look at the view of Lyon.

The tents that we had passed by.

Jeanne likes to get a picture with her holding her local paper, the Echo.  Then she sends it in and they post it.

We had to wait a little to go inside because mass was going on.

When mass was over the bishop or priest was greeting people as they left.  Then we were allowed to enter.  It was very ornate.

We looked at the views from the other side of the basilica.

Eiffel tower replica only smaller.

We took the funicular back down.

We stopped for ice cream at Terre de Adelice.  We had heard about this place on the food tour.  They are like Salt and Straw in Portland with the variety of unusual flavors.  They have 80 flavors.  Sharon chose the roquefort flavor, Jeanne had strawberry, and Kris had apricot.  I didn't have any.  Too many flavors to choose from.  There was no place to sit so we headed over to the river to sit.

We were looking for a dinner place, 

Once we were on Rue Mercière, we found many restaurants, one after the other. It was a very lively area.

Rick Steves had recommended Le Bistrot de Lyon. We were not very hungry so we chose some smaller dishes.

I had a butternut custard in a bed of mushroom sauce. Kris and Sharon had the spinach tartlet, and Jeanne had the roasted vegetable plate.  Mine was very tasty.  It was not a sweet custard.  I would have that again.  

We did order a dessert to share.

Apple cake with whipped cream and caramel sauce.  

I was not very impressed with the cake.  It was very dry even with the sauce.  

We headed back to the hotel.

No good pictures of the full moon