The next morning we got up at 8, had breakfast at the hotel's included buffet (which was surprisingly nice!), and then set out. We wanted to go to Lyon's Old Town (Vielle Lyon). As we approached, a basilica stood beckoning to us from atop a hill, so of course our first order of business was to find it and see the incredible view from the hilltop.
Huge transit station near our hotel
Park
Park
More park
Place de Bellecoeur
Still at the Place
Same
See the basilica on the hill?
Rhone!
...and us!
Cathedral
Cathedral from farther away
And even farther
Getting pretty high
Spring flowers!
At the edge of the world
Even higher with the view
More view
But the basilica is still higher!
There it is! And it's massive!
A fisheye lens would have been really helpful here
There's the golden figure on top
Overlooking the magnificent view on the magnificent morning
Incredible details like this were EVERYWHERE
And then we went inside...
This mosaic isn't illuminated in any way, it's just shimmery in the light coming in through the stained glass windows
So that was pretty magnificent. And on our way out, we discovered that we'd taken a pretty roundabout way up to the basilica because there had been so few people around at that hour, so we took the intended path down the hill.
The path went by a garden with more spring flowers
And a fish pond
And some blooming trees and views up and down the hill
Ultimately, we made it back down to the Old Town.
We wandered for a good while and then decided to have lunch
But we were on the early side, so places were just opening up. This is where we ended up. By the time we were getting served, it was completely full.
1st course: salad with crostinis with goat cheese
2nd course: sausage, gravy, veggies, boiled potato
3rd course: crême caramel
It took forever to get out once we'd eaten, since servers don't care about you after you've been served here. We ultimately gave up on getting our bill and just went inside to pay. When other people saw us doing that, a line formed behind us. We'd already asked for our bill twice and waited 15 minutes at that point, so we felt like giving up was the best option.
More river
Fountain on the new side of town
After lunch we headed back over the river to the new side of town for some shopping. We spent all afternoon walking around different shops--the shopping area is massive--and getting lost and going in circles. Ultimately, we took the ferry down to a shopping center down by our hotel and walked back to the hotel before dinner.
For dinner, we walked through the park that we'd gone through that morning and found a place to eat right on the periphery.
Mussels in white wine sauce (with fries, not pictured)
My mussels were delicious (better than my lunch main course, I'd say). Our hotel offers two complimentary glasses of wine with your room, so we went back to the hotel and got our wine afterwards. We were feeling amazed by how tired we were, so I looked at the step tracker on my phone to see approximately how far we'd walked, it told me 14.9 miles (about 24 km). Crazy! No wonder we hurt everywhere.
This morning we grabbed breakfast at the hotel quickly before we left to catch the bus (which left at 7:30, and we had daylight savings change this morning in Europe, so we were short on sleep)...and found that the bus was not where it dropped us off. It was raining rather hard, and the transit station in Lyon is massive, and it took a lot of speed walking to figure out where we needed to be. I think we had to ask 4 or 5 different people. We made it just at the departure time; I think they'd been holding the bus for us.
Now I'm home safe and exhausted. I just did some laundry and took a shower, and I'm about to take a nap.
Things that are making me happy:
- Good and interesting food
- Adventure!
- New friends
