Lyon - France, April 2024

 Apparently the fondue in Chamonix made Lucy sick. She was up in the night and still not feeling good the next day. That meant Coco and I had to navigate Lyon (including train travel to and from) by ourselves. The horror! Coco is a take-charge, capable kind of person, though, so we did fine. As soon as we got there, Coco suggested we grab some food. I thought I'd maybe rather starve all day than have to go into an eatery and attempt to communicate with a French speaker, but we did it. Lucy, who is amazing, gave us an itinerary for the day with about 10 stops on it. We started at the Parc de la Tête d'or, which is lovely, but we didn't get to see enough of it because we had to hurry to an appointment at a silk weaving place. 

We were surprised and delighted to stumble upon a whole bunch of little turtles and some deer/antelope-type animals.

A Google search tells me there may be all sorts of zoo animals at that park, but we didn't see any others because we had to hurry on our way.  

Such great trees.

We had to race to our silk weaving demonstration at Maison des Canuts. There must have been a better way to get there because our route took us up about a million stairs. I was sweating under my layers. (It was very cold during our trip. I basically had to wear all of my clothes every day - regular leggings under wool leggings under jeans, plus all the long-sleeved things. So cold.)

We made it in time, though! Our tour guide did a demonstration on a Jacquard hand loom. She spoke in French and then in English (for Coco and me). Definitely the French version was much longer than the English version. It was interesting, although it gave me that museum syndrome where I get frustrated because I want to understand fully and can't. It's hard being dumb.  

Next, we visited one of the big murals in the city. 

I thought it was interesting that the mural has been redone over the years, updated with the times - painted in 1987 and then redone in 1997 and 2013.

We saw Simone Biles graffiti in a number of places. Super weird.  

We saw some fun buildings and sculptures/fountains, but we didn't really know what we were looking at. We missed Lucy and all her knowledge. 

This one is the Jacobean Fountain. The sign said it represents four Lyon artists housed in a temple of art. 

We went to Place Bellecour to see the equestrian statue of Louis XIV, but it was under construction. The original statute was erected in 1713 but was destroyed in the French Revolution and was replaced by another statute in 1826. 

This area is called Presqu'île. It's an old Parisian-style area on the central peninsula of Lyon, between the Rhône and Saône rivers.   

We walked up to the Rosary Garden on Fourvière Hill.

At the top of the hill, we checked out the Basilica of Notre Dame of Fourvière. 

When we arrived, there was some amazing chanting going on. I wish I had a representative vid, but this is all I got. 

The crypt. 

I wanted to understand what this was but couldn't because French. Possibly a recreation of, and discussion about, the Shroud of Turin, which people like to think is Jesus' shroud?

Next we visited the ruins of an ancient Roman theater. 

Coco and I went to a restaurant recommended by Lucy for dinner. We ordered steak and fries, and then we had to send our steak back for further cooking because the French version of medium well is so rare that there was no way we could attempt to eat it. We found the right train home and were very happy that we succeeded at a day without our wonderful French-speaking tour guide.