France - Lyon

Ok so after a short two train journey we arrived in Lyon (pronounced Leon) a city that will be buzzing over the next few days with people coming from near and far to enjoy the Festival of lights.  We had some pretty good instructions to get to our hostel, and arrived there without a hitch, only to be told we were in separate dorms, because ‘we don’t mix sexes here in France’ say what – you don’t mix sexes?  Must admit I think France has been the most, gay happy, publicly touchy feely race we have come across but anyway, when in Lyon you do what the ............ In La Rochelle we had not found this problem, and we had actually booked a twin room, but anyway cut a long story short we waddled off to our separate sex rooms and picked our beds.  We were pretty confident our 27 year old marriage could survive two nights sleeping in separate rooms!

Lyon stood ready for exploration, it had begun to lightly rain, but it was still pleasant enough to wander around.  Two rivers split the city into three parts, we were on the first part, the main city in the middle and the main train station was on the third.  The hostel was half way up Fourviere hill, so we headed down to the shopping area and had a look around that, saw some preparation work for the festival, lights and public barriers were being erected.  We crossed one of the many bridges, over the mucky fast flowing water to get to the main city part. The river appeared to be very high, in fact the lower floor of the car park, was closed.  It was running really fast, maybe around 25 knots. The city kind of had a different feel to it really,  people were excited about the lights and the streets were a bit wider, lots of huge pedestrian walkways, gardens, park like grounds and of course many statues.  Europeans are very keen to keep their history alive by erecting these statues and monuments everywhere – some are really neat, but I don’t mind if I never see a man on a horse ever again!  No disrespect intended.We got some supplies from the local supermarket and headed back to cook our dinner.  The hill to the hostel was a big one, but we got there, blisters on little toes (i brought new boots) and all. Murray got that job, ravioli pasta, with sauce from a jar, sprinkle of cheese on top and we’re done!  Good one.  That evening we spent reading, emailing and planning our route to see as many of these lights the following night as we could.  There were so many to visit and there was no way to see them all as they were spread out.   We wished each other ‘sweet dreams’ and headed off in opposite directions to bed.

Fourviere Hill

Gorgeous posy of flowers - made a change from man on a horse!

Lookout from the hill over the city

The river, it was pretty high, there was two levels of parking under the cars that you can see.
The bottom level was closed because the water was so high, as you can see nearly overlapping into it.

 The next morning we woke to light snow showers, the young Taiwanese girl in the dorm, was so excited!  It didn't settle, so her excitement I guess didn't last that long.  But it was nice nonetheless. The plan for the day was to find some of the underground Traboules and explore the city again, then head back and rest our feet for awhile in preparation for the nights festival walking.   The hunt for Traboules was a difficult one, with not much information on where to find them, but we did manage to find one, which was closed but then a lady came along and showed us how to open the door and we go in.  Not much to see though, just a big solid wooden door leading to a corridor which in turn led to more doors.  I guess you could have gone in the olden days from one to the other all underground.  Every street was lined with competitive chocolate and pastry shops all with tempting and scrumptious looking edibles on display.  Walked past a butcher, who had a couple of customers and took a photo of a bird, still with feathers on its head and feet!  We checked out a few more sights before heading back up the hill, this time by funicular,  to the top of Fourviere hill to enjoy the view over the city.  It was truly amazing and truly freezing!  Very small white fluffy bits began to fall from the sky again.  We ended up by walking back down the hill, which was OK  as the snow didn't eventuate to much.  After a bit of a rest up and replenish we set off on the Fete Des Lumieres rampage of the city.

Haha - a chocolate lab in a butcher shop, better hold that lead tight fella.

Can't really see the bird very well, a fancy kind of chicken the head and neck and feet feathers on,
you can just see some others on the counter.

The fast flowing river.

Clever stilt walkers negotiating the cobbled streets

At last we found one a Traboule - (ancient passage)

Front of the church on Fourviere Hill.

Don't know how many steps there were, but it was so steep!

 We could already see some lights from the hostel, but nothing compared to what we would see.  It was beautiful, and the best part is that all the displays were completely different and well spread out.  There were of course crowds of people moving about the city, but it was spread out really well.  We watched a performance with flames by four men which was really good, and a bit different.  The light displays ranged from being quite static to 3D projected ones that felt like they were coming right at you.  Amazing, you can look at more photos on www.fetedeslumieres.lyon.fr   There were the huge animals that were doing a parade with bright colours and moving arms, legs and tails.  Just too many to describe or show, maybe you could check out.  It was a late night, so after a brisk walk home we settled in for our last sleep in Lyon.

AMAZING!

The next morning was an early start, we were to meet in the breakfast room at 5.30am.  Murray didn't show up, so I went knocking on his door,  his alarm hadn't gone off, so the panic was on, we were cutting it so fine anyway, without sleeping in.  The receptionist couldn't get hold of a taxi and we had to run down the hill to the metro station catch one then change to a tram because the next metro was on strike then get to the main station.  Just ten minutes after waking Murray, we were running down the hill, the wheels on the packs flicking up stones, and spinning out of control.  Hilarious to any one peaking out their windows at that time!  and just got to the metro door and we spotted a taxi, we jumped in and could breathe again – we were after all, going to make it.  We have four trains to catch today.  Lyon to Geneve, then to Zurich, then to Buchloe and then to Weilheim.  But hopefully we will catch up with Reinhard our second helpx host  in Zurich for a quick coffee.

Oh  lala 

France, thanks for having us!