Lyon – A Tour

*This is the first of a four-part series.

Don’t be jealous. I went to Lyon, France, this weekend. I suppose you can be a little jealous. I saw a beautiful city. I walked (about) fifteen miles (up hill both ways). I second-hand smoked like it was my job. I ate some of the best meals of my life. You know, the usual.

Before we start the city tour, let me give you a few background details on this spectacular city. You know, to wet your appetite. Lyon finds itself roughly halfway between Paris and Marseilles (it is about 2 hours from Paris by TGV – Trains that Go Very fast). A mere 160km from Geneva, it is even closer to the French Alps. On a clear day, you can see Mount Blanc (the highest mountain in Western Europe). The city was founded by the Romans back in 43BC and later served as the capital of Gaul because of its location at the nexus of two pretty major rivers: the Saône and the Rhône. It is split up into three parts: Fourvière/Old Lyon – west of the Saône – is a giant hill/mountain with a pretty basilica on top, the peninsula – between the two rivers – is flat towards the south with lots of shops and restaurants and then becomes another giant hill/mountain topped with the area Croix-Rousse, and the rest – east of the Rhône – is pretty flat and normal city-like. To help you keep it all straight, it is divided into nine arrondissements, that is to say nine areas of roughly similar size numbered in an order that defies all logic. The city proper houses just over 470,000 people and the metropolitan area about 1,750,000, so we’re talking a pretty substantial city, here.

Perhaps more importantly, Lyon is often called the culinary/gastronomical capital of France (and therefore the world). It has an entire constellation of Michelin stars among its many fine restaurants. Chef Paul Bocuse (father of modern French cuisine and namesake of the culinary Olympics: Bocuse d’Or) lives and operates his restaurant only kilometers from the city. Lyon is also known for its brasserie/bistro-like restaurants know as bouchons. These bouchons are a meat lover’s paradise. They serve all kinds of sausage and offal dishes at relatively low prices. Alas, my culinary escapades in Lyon will have to wait for their own blogs. Let’s see the city first.

What’s the best way to see a city? How about a tour provided by the tourist office?!

We start at the Place Bellecour, a HUGE town square that dates back to the days of royalty (please know that Lyon has town squares everywhere and most of them have fountains – the people of Lyon must really love fountains). So how big are we talking? The largest in France and one of the largest in Europe. Apparently, the kings lined up their soldiers here and paraded around as only kings can. In any event, this is a typical royal square, with symmetric and mirrored buildings on the north and south sides (destroyed during the Revolution and rebuilt by Napoleon) and a giant statue of Louis XIV on a horse.

Visible from the Place Bellecour is this monument.

A monument to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and his timeless work, Le Petit Prince. Saint-Exupéry was born in Lyon (though he spent little time there).

Next up, the Cathedral of Saint John (the Baptist, that is).

This one is pretty impressive, but aren’t they all? Two fun facts: 1) if you look closely in the picture above, you will find that the statues of people on the outside of the building are decapitated – separation of Church and State is a theme in France – and 2) the Cathedral houses a pretty sweet clock.

The mechanism was originally constructed in the Middle Ages, but the exterior was restored during the Renaissance. There are three faces of the clock: 1) minutes, 2) hour, day, month, and location of the moon, and 3) Saints day (according to three different persuasions), and the major astronomical constellations as seen from Lyon. On the hour, the top part puts on a little show: a metallic rooster crows and flaps its wings, angel’s and men pop out of nowhere and circle around, bells chime, etc. This is one step above a cuckoo clock, people. And please take the time to appreciate that all this was engineered well before electricity.

Moving on, our tour guide is leading us through an unassuming door:

No, we are not going into someone’s house (that would be creepy and, probably, illegal). We are entering a traboule, or secret passageway. They are all different, but here is a typical one:

The city of Lyon was planned in such a way that the main roads run parallel to the rivers. In order for manufacturers (silk was a big industry in Lyon back in the day) to move their products toward the river, they constructed these passageways that sheltered them from the elements. Nowadays, these passageways serve mainly as entrances to private homes, tourist attractions, and storage areas (or all three!). These are interesting because they are (almost completely) unique to Lyon. Also, during WWII, they allowed Resistance members to hold secret meetings and escape the Gestapo. In the traboule pictured above, the stone floor and columns were cut from local mines, and they have fossils in them.

Why not stop in a museum? Lyon is full of them on pretty much any subject you can think of: regular art, modern art, the Resistance, and marionettes (the puppet kind) to name a few. We ended up at the Museum of Miniatures and Movie Props. There were a lot of props from some pretty cool movies and a ton of miniature displays/scenes. The amount of detail in these tiny rooms was unbelievable. There was also tiny art. Well worth the 5.50 euro.

I’m tired of this museum and history business. Let’s have a picnic atop a hill. Okay. The hill on the peninsula portion of Lyon is topped by an area called Croix-Rousse (originally home to many a silk worker and now just a pretty part of town and a UNESCO World Heritage Site). There is a market on Saturday mornings. What luck! Lets buy some fruit and bread from the market and find a nice place to eat. Picnic view:

And we have to go to Mass at some point. Sunday morning sounds good. Let's go to that Church. It looks pretty.

The only problem is that the Basilica of Notre Dame de Fourvière is actually on a mountain. The only way to get up the mountain is to walk. Thirty minutes later, we walk into Mass during the Psalm with a decent sweat worked up. Afterwards, there were pictures taken.

The interior is the most ornate I’ve seen in France. Mosaic walls, floors, and ceilings. Actual color and paintings involved. It was beautiful. Even the crypt was a huge space and impressive church. And it is all topped with a pretty, golden Lady.

And how about that view?

This makes all that climbing worth it. What else was on the mountain? How about a tower that replicates the last stage of the Eiffel Tower and currently serves as a TV/satellite tower.

Or some ruins left over from Antiquity.

Roman Amphitheater. Dating back to 5BC, this outdoor theater held 11,000 people when its second tier was still standing. It currently holds 4,500, but is no less impressive. The acoustics were terrific (we tried them out). Right next door was a mini-amphitheater. The Romans loved a good amphitheater.

It wasn’t until after Mass that we realized there is a train, a funicular in fact, that takes you up the mountain in roughly a minute and a half. That would have been nice to know before I scaled a mountain and cursed the very God I was going to worship every step of the way. No matter, we took the funicular down the mountain.

And it is here that I leave you, friends. I'd say we got a pretty good "post card" view of Lyon, wouldn't you? Unfortunately, one weekend is not nearly enough to discover a city with such history. I’ll just have to go back one day…