Soooooo this post may be long overdue. However, sometimes that happens when you're trying to find an apartment, and work a job, and life gets busy! BUT, we promised a Lyon trip post and here it is!
Day 1
Jenna and I got up bright and early to get to the bus stop for 9:10am. The bus ended up being so late that I had to ask another person at the bus stop if the bus was even coming, to which she promptly replied "Oh don't worry, the X33 is always late." As our patience waned, the bus finally showed up and drove us through the twisty windy roads of the mountains to the train station. This left Jenna a little green-looking (the motion sickness is real bad on those winding roads) but we'd made it to our connection. The train came right on time and took us through the many fields of France.
1 / 2Loading image...
Once we were finally in Lyon, Jenna navigated us to our Airbnb for an early check in. Our Airbnb was in the new district of Lyon, and hosted by a lovely lady named Sophie (more on her later!) who had lived there for some years. She was happy to give us restaurant recommendations and even lend us a travel guide for the area.
Our first stop in the city was for food in Old Lyon! We shared a savory sausage crêpe and a sweet desert crêpe between us. Both were excellent, and I would definitely go to La Table Brestoise again!
1 / 2Loading image...
Now that our tummies were full, we walked over to the Cathédrale Saint-Jean-Baptiste square where we located our tour guide, Quentin. First stop on the tour was the Cathédrale of course. We learned about the French Revolution and how most of the statues/gargoyles on the outside of the building were destroyed during the French Revolution. However, a new gargoyle had just been added to celebrate the current caretaker of the church who had just retired! Inside the church, we looked at the astronomical clock that was built in 1661 and modelled after an original astronomical clock from 1383 that was destroyed in 1562. The clock has a perpetual calendar that goes for 66 years.
Next, we looked at some unique architecture in Old Lyon while Quentin told us about Lyon's origins as a Silk production hub. This was also where we were told about the 400+ hidden passageways in Lyon, which are almost all accessible today if you know where to look and what buttons to press. "Press all the buttons in Old Lyon, kick down all the doors," said Quentin. These passageways were used to get down to the river quickly instead of navigating the bustling streets, to bring silk to the city center for transport. And during the revolution, many of the passageways were used for meet-ups and moving through the city secretly!
1 / 10Loading image...
In any European city, there is WW2 history. When we stopped in front of Lyon's very prestigious courthouse, we were told the story of Klaus Barbie. Klaus was known as the "Butcher of Lyon" as he was the head Nazi who occupied Lyon during WW2, and he committed countless crimes against the people of Lyon. At the end of the war Klaus fled to Bolivia where he was given protection by the government. Fortunately Serge and Beate Klarsfeld --- a Nazi hunting couple --- identified Klaus as a Nazi in 1971 through their investigations. The problem was how to get him to reveal himself. The couple came up with the idea of doing an interview with Klaus. They asked him many questions in English where he pretended he had lived in Bolivia and didn't speak French. But then they hit him with a question in French, and he responded in French without thinking, condemning himself. Since he outed himself, he was taken back to Lyon and put on trial. People were lined up outside the building to testify against him! (Apparently you can watch his interview on YouTube where he realized he's been caught).
In addition, we visited the old main hospital, Hostel Lyon, which was well renowned in it's time for being safer than other hospitals as you only had a 1/14 chance of dying whereas other hospitals were a 1/4 chance of dying!
Our tour guide ended the tour talking about Le Petite Prince (The Little Prince), which he was a big fan of ("I've only got two books on my bedside table: The Little Prince and the Bible," said Quentin) and which was very culturally impactful in France. The author has a wild and mysterious life story. It is said the book is based on hallucinations the author had after crashing his plane in the desert and being stranded there for five days. He also disappeared mysteriously at the end of his life, having said he was going to fly his plane to one location, but his plane was recently discovered in the ocean somewhere else.
After all the walking around, we were exhausted and headed back to the Airbnb to take a break and hunt for dinner. We learned quickly that booking restaurants last minute in a touristy city was a bad plan. Luckily we managed to find an Italian restaurant (Mima) that wasn't fully booked. Jenna and I dressed up fancy(since this was our belated Valentine's Day date)and off we went. The restaurant had a very cozy atmosphere with complimentary peanuts to start. We ordered Paccheri al Pistachio, Risotto all Pugliese, and a bottle of red wine. For dessert, we had an excellent tiramisu in a Moka pot shaped cup. We even received dessert peanuts when we'd eaten all our food. What a great first day!
1 / 4Loading image...
Day 2
In the morning Jenna grabbed a shower while I chatted with our Airbnb host Sophie. Turns out she has chronic fatigue too which we bonded over! I did my best to speak French throughout that conversation with the help of google for the odd word I couldn't remember! We grabbed some tasty pastries from a local pâtisserie for breakfast and attempted to eat them in a cute little corner street park, but we just ended up having to play fend-off-the-pigeons the whole time haha!
Our main event of the day was La Musée de Beaux Arts de Lyon, where we spent 5 hours in their 70+ rooms. Outside La Musée de Beaux Arts de Lyon was a huge fountain, which unfortunately had no running water in it, but was beautiful nonetheless. The museum itself was a large rectangular building with a courtyard in the center, full of statues and flora.
The first section of the museum we wandered through was that of the Egyptians! Spooky! They had all kinds of sarcophagi (mummy coffins), mummy wrappings, etc. It was fascinating to look at all the inscriptions, but the room felt a little cursed, so we didn't take any photos (just to be on the safe side). Following this they had some carved stones that they pieced back together, as well as a bunch of other items made by the ancient Egyptians. Our favourite was the carvings of a cow giving birth hehe.
1 / 20Loading image...
The rooms slowly faded into less ancient artifacts. Busts, armor, ceramics, etc. There was even a whole room dedicated to coins. The most interesting display was a pot of gold and silver coins from 1360 that had been discovered when a parking lot was being developed across from the museum.
The historical artifacts took up the whole second floor of the museum, as well as the whole of our morning, and so it came time for lunch! We decided to just grab a bite at the museum cafe, where I had a piece of quiche and Nick had a salmon cream cheese sandwich.
Up next was the third floor of the museum, which was dedicated to paintings, going back as early as the 15th century. Most of the early ones were very gory, very religious, and/or very large! There was one set of 21 or so paintings that all told the story of this one couple. I really liked this one of a lady in a red dress. They also had the painting "Flower of the Fields", which apparently is their most famous piece (though I hadn't heard of it before). In one room a man had set up an easel and was painting a copy of one of the paintings too! And in the more modern sections they had a couple of Monet's and a Degas, which were definitely my favourites!
After spending an obscene amount of time in the museum, it was time for dinner! Unfortunately no restaurants in France are open at 5pm, as we were beginning to learn, and so we thought perhaps we'll just chill in a café until dinner time. You know, get out of the rain, grab a warm beverage, and decide where we're going to go for dinner when the time comes. Unfortunately there was only one café in the area open, and it was crammed full of people! We dawdled for a moment, but eventually ordered the coffee to go, seeing as there were no seats. But then! People left! There were two free seats! We were sitting there for not two minutes when the waitress kicked us out because we had ordered "to go" coffee (even though they had practically forced us to) and they wanted to give the seats to the people who had walked in after us! So Nick and I drank our coffees in the rain, tired and hungry and a little shook. And when we were done our coffees, we took refuge from the rain in the church while we figured out our next plan of action.
Loading image...
In the end we were pretty tired and the restaurants were a pain to book, so we just transited back to our Airbnb area and went to a French taco fast-food restaurant. Quentin had told us on the tour that we just had to try the French taco, and we were curious. Unlike a typical taco, the French taco is filled with chicken strips, fries, and cheese, and tastes sort of like a pierogi.
Finally, we had a great end to our evening when we arrived back at the Airbnb to find that Sophie had left us a treat on the counter: Lyon's local delicacy, the pink praline brioche! We didn't end up trying any until we got home, but it is exquisite and probably the best pastry we've had so far!
Loading image...
Day 3
Our final day in Lyon! We checked out of our Airbnb and took a quick transit ride down to the train station where we paid to store our bags, so we wouldn't have to carry them around all day. Then we hopped on the subway again and went straight into Old Lyon in search of breakfast food! We stopped into a real coffee shop for once, Puzzle Café, and Jenna had her best cup of coffee yet. Unfortunately, the café didn't serve much for food, so we got our drinks to-go and went down the street to Pralus Pâtisserie. For breakfast, we had flan (eggs, vanilla, sugar, milk, fruit) and a praline bread stick. Both were sweet and excellent in flavor. Pink praline based bread products are a Lyonnais delicacy!
Our main stop for this day was the Musée Cinéma et Miniature. The museum had a couple of entire recreated sets from the French movie Perfume: The Story of a Murderer which was cool but very spooky, so we didn't stay long in those exhibits. They also had an exhibit for Ghostbusters, Beetlejuice, and Alien. There were various famous props like the car from Harry Potter, Herbie, C-3PO from Star Wars, a re-creation of a dinosaur head from Jurassic Park, a spider-man costume, and so much more.The dashboard of the car from Harry Potter was even signed by a bunch of the cast members! There were also a bunch of prosthetics from various movies, as well as molds of some famous actors' faces!
1 / 12Loading image...
The second part of the museum was miniatures of which I'll include some pictures here. It's a crazy art form because of how small everything is and the insane amount of detail put into these models. There was even a miniature of an office where they were making miniatures!
1 / 5Loading image...
After the museum, we went for lunch at a local French restaurant where we tried another Lyonnaise specific dish called Quenelle (essentially a fish bread with a fish sauce over top of it). It was strange in my opinion, but Jenna really liked it! While waiting for that main dish we got free olives and bread to go with our beers. Since our train was in the early afternoon we decided against going to the fancy church and instead bought some macrons (Jenna is on a journey to find the best macrons in France), then headed back to the train station. We had a pretty painless travel home and definitely want to come back to Lyon again as there was so much more to do!
1 / 2Loading image...
P.S. After getting home I had my first encounter with food poisoning (was it the Quenelle!!?!). Jenna took care of me though, so I made it through!