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| View of La Basillique de Notre Dame from La Rive Saone |
Last weekend, a group of us decided to go check out Lyon and I must say that this was a great decision. Lyon is roughly a 2 hour train ride from Geneva so we all met up at the main train station in Geneva, Gare Cornavin, after work, ready for a fantastic French experience. We arrived in Lyon late Friday evening and after setting our things down at our hostel, we went out to explore briefly. Fortunately most of us were pretty exhausted from a long work week and we decided to turn in after an hour of exploring so that we could get the most out of our weekend.
We started our Saturday off right with a nice little breakfast from a sidewalk boulangerie/patisserie. I had a quiche that had tomatoes, eggplant, and mushrooms and a giant pistachio macaroon (my first proper French macaron). Needless to say I was on a sugar rush for the rest of the day. I don't know how Manischewitz gets away with calling those Passover cookies "macaroons;" ingenious marketing move I suppose but nothing compared to the real deal.
After a breakfast of this magnitude we decided as a group that we needed to do a lot of walking to get our bodies back on even keel, a theme that would repeat itself for most of the 40 hours we spent in Lyon. For those that don't know, outside of Paris, Lyon is considered the capital of French gastronomy so needless to say we indulged just a little bit over the weekend. It was nice to discover that really good meals are pretty affordable in Lyon, which is quite a difference from Geneva. Now, let me get back to the weekend...From breakfast we walked up to the Place Bellecour and then down to the Saone river. The area of Lyon that we were staying in is a peninsula split by the Saone and Rhone rivers (French speakers forgive me, I'm typing this on my Dell so now French accent keys, although I am getting used to my Swiss keyboard at work!) so we got a nice view of both riverbanks. We walked along Quai St. Antoine to a nice Saturday market that had plenty of goodies.
After taking in the sights and smells of the market, we crossed over the Saone to Vieux Lyon, where we spent the rest of the morning and also had lunch. The difference between Vieux Lyon and modern Lyon is incredible and I'm amazed at how well maintained Vieux Lyon is. Our first destination upon setting foot in Vieux Lyon was the Cathedrale Saint-Jean, which was built on Roman ruins very close to the riverbank. As you can probably tell from the majority of my photos, the weather in Lyon was absolutely beautiful all weekend long but it was also extremely sunny which means that there were some exposure issues in some of the photos.
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| The front of the Cathedrale Saint-Jean |
The cathedral was built sometime in the 15th century and has some pretty neat history (look at the photos in my album from Lyon for more detail). From the cathedral we chose to trek up the hill to get to La Basillique Notre Dame de Fourviere rather than take the cable car up. The journey up was intense, but well worth it given the views we were able to take in. The photo below is a panorama of the view of modern Lyon from the hill.
The Basillica was also quite impressive and similar to the Cathedral, was also completed in the 15th century and is quite immaculate. There are plenty of pictures in my album of the insides so I'll spare the details because words won't do it justice. From La Basillique we made our way over to the ruins of a large Roman amphitheatre and again, I was just amazed at the condition that the ruins are in. Even more interesting is that the city of Lyon uses the ruins to stage concerts and other events during the summer, which is very cool. Take a look for yourselves.
After spending most of the morning out in the sun trekking about in Vieux Lyon, we needed some nourishment. Luckily for us, there is no shortage of cafes in Lyon, especially Vieux Lyon, so once we had descended back into the town, we promptly found a place to sit and relax and enjoy a good meal. Many of the cafes in the area had special prix fixe menus starting at 15 euros, which I thought was a pretty good deal. I started off with la salade Lyonnaise, which consisted of greens, croutons, a poached egg, and bacon in a lite dressing. For my main course I had a lemon chicken dish with rice and some greens in a citrus vinaigrette and for dessert I had a slice of apple-rhubarb pie.
In typical Lyon fashion, this lunch took about two hours and it was nice to just sit and take in the atmosphere while people watching. After coming out of our food comas, we made our way back across the Saone in search of some gourmet chocolate, which we were successful in finding and it was delicious as well. The chocolate gave us some renewed energy and we made our way to the Hotel-de-Ville aka the city center of Lyon. As it so happened, there was a big Pride parade taking place on the same day and our timing was impeccable as we got swept into the frenzy for a few blocks before jumping out of line to take another break.
By this point in the day, we all decided that we should probably make our way back to our hostel to clean up for dinner, which we had at a restaurant recommended to me by my supervisor at work. The restaurant, Le Sud, is one of four relatively well-priced brasseries run by Lyon's most famous chef, Paul Bocuse. Again they had a prix fixe menu which was what I went with. I started with a chilled dish of pureed eggplant and spinach and then had a Moroccan style lamb dish served on a bed of couscous with a side of potatoes. As was expected, the food was quite good, have a look for yourselves.
After dinner we went and explored Lyon's nightlife for a while and then called it a night. We woke up a little later on Sunday and as is typical in many European cities, we weren't missing much since most shops, etc... are closed. We were able to partake in market life once again and the markets did not disappoint. We spent the remaining hours wandering around Lyon, stopping for lunch at a place that specializes in moules frites. Needless to say, I was more than happy to partake in the house specialty. All in all it was the perfect way to cap off a great weekend of gastronomy and sightseeing in a great city and I'm already looking forward to a return visit sometime in the future.
What I'm listening to: "Stranger in a Strange Land" - Leon Russell and the Shelter People
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