Lyon

This city is beautiful. Two rivers gracefully carving though colorful apartment filled hills give the best cityscapes. Out time here was colorful as well. Many ups and downs.

We arrived mid afternoon after a long two train, three hour layover journey from Pontorson. Immediately we were graced with heat and humidity. We were clearly in the south of France. We made it to the hotel (4th floor, no elevator), and immediately sook out laundry services.

Laundry was in the beautiful historic neighborhood of Saint Georges. Cobbled pedestrian streets wind through restaurants, churches and museums in a long narrow strip of land between the river and a large treed bluff. We explored a cathedral, very pretty, but they are starting to become repetitive by our 8th or 9th French one. As always, Cam checked out every restaurant menu, and the same theme always came up, Lyonaisse food. Now, everything was in French, and google translate didn’t help (what’s a “Floating Island? Foreshadowing. That’s what). So we found a Vietnamese restaurant instead, as we wanted some comfort food. In heartbreaking fashion, their kitchen had closed for the day. There was also a mechanical puppet clock that rang bells every 15 minutes. That was very entertaining to watch them ding.

For dinner, we found a little hole in the wall type restaurant that had Lyonaisse cuisine. Not knowing what we were ordering, the three of us each got an appetizer, main, and dessert. This meal was a total disaster. Cam’s appetizer consisted of a grey lifeless sausage, matching lentils, and a tzatziki sauce. The taste was palatable, but the visual was cold and dead. Her appetite was gone. Ty’s main was an over salted gristled steak with mushy vegetables. That was the best one. Cam’s was a “fish mousse,” consisting of some Frankenstein egg and fish blended hybrid wrapped in some soggy pastry, sitting in a bath of tasteless brown sauce. She got three bites into that. Graham ordered an Andoulliette sausage, which unbeknown to us, is much different than an Andouille sausage. An Andoulliette is unseasoned chunky stomach lining carelessly wrapped in a sausage wrapper. When you cut into the sausage, the grey chunks spill out onto your plate like a cannibals body part collection. The pieces take massive effort to chew through, giving you more time to reflect on how your life ended up this way as the slightly sour meat scrapes across your tongue. We had a floating island for dessert, which is a large amount of meringue in a cream sauce. It looks like an iceberg. But after the meal we just had, the soft marshmallowy texture had no business being near our mouths. We made it to the nearest bar after, and slammed crappy IPA’s to drown our misery.

The next day was a lovely day. We all still didn’t have an appetite, so nothing to eat until lunch. We walked up the hill across the river to Lyon’s Notre Dame. This cathedral is easily the most beautiful interior we have seen. Every square inch is beautifully decorated. Nearby was an ancient roman amphitheater, which has been restored for concerts. There’s one the night after we leave, which should be fun. We checked that out, avoiding a field trip of six year old’s that somehow kept following us. We made it to the Vietnamese joint for lunch, and the comfort pho was much needed. It was wonderful there.

We took a diversion to the Musee Cinema et Miniature, a museum that housed movie props and costumes used on set. Some highlights included the alien form Alien, Harry Potters glasses, and the triceratops form Jurassic Park. There was also an exhibit on movie poster painying, which made us realize how much of a lost art that was. The tour ended with rooms filled with miniature room dioramas, which were fun to look at.

Our next stop was the botanical gardens, which are apparently France’s best. The green house section is quite tall and jungle like, but only a 15 minute endeavor, as there is not a lot of square footage comparatively. It seems to be a popular reading site though. The outside areas are lovely as well, a large pond and rock garden combo, and rows of planted flowers make up the majority. We tasted some honey bread, which we expected to be like gingerbread or banana bread, but was instead a regular loaf of bread with honey. It was strange again.

Beside the botanical gardens was the Lyon Zoo, which is free! The first animal’s we saw were four giraffes just chilling in a large African safari exhibit. They also had some non-American foxes, lots of monkeys, red pandas and lemurs. The giraffes were the best though. We love giraffes.

Dinner was at a really good east Asian food joint. It was a tapas style place, with lots of small dishes to try. It was the meal we were expecting when we came to Lyon, delicious through and through.

We retired back to the hotel, getting ready for a travel day the next day to the south of France.

Or so we thought.

On June 27th, a 17 year old, Nahel, was killed at the hands of French police in Paris. Since that incident, violent demonstrations have broken out across France in protest of police brutality. On the night of June 30th, while we were trying to get to sleep, Lyon was brimming with activity.

We saw the signs earlier in our visit. Armed military were walking the streets throughout Lyon, and as the sun set lower, more and more police vehicles entered the city streets. The streets got quiet around 11:00PM. Then around midnight, as were all lying in our beds, we here some commotion outside. Nothing too crazy, just sounded like some paryting. Which made sense for our area, there were two clubs half a block away. But when I got up to look, this was no club.

I gazed outside of our hotel window to find right below us was a street bonfire. Trash was being thrown into it to make it bigger. Every once in a while, someone would spray lighter fluid onto the fire for a rush. We didn’t have the best view, but by our best guesses, there were five or so boys involved. The whole scene gave off a vibe not of a protest, but of young kids just having fun breaking the rules. Still terrifying to witness.

Eventually, the police or fire came and doused out the flames. The boys took off running when the sirens were heard. We then spent the next hour or two hearing the sound of distant fireworks, as we tried to get to sleep.

The next morning was eerie. A metro line that we needed was closed, so we had to walk a good majority of the way to the station. The public had a sense of embarrassment and regret, as if they were collectively the bridesmaid that slept with the “DO NOT TOUCH,” cousin at the wedding, and did not want to own up to it as they knew they were going to do it again the next day. We saw four firepits, multiple smashed windows, and even an overturned car on our way to the station. We also saw a young girl with a clearly recent bandaged hand waiting for the metro.

Anyways, on to the Mediterranean next. Lets home its a little less eventful.