I hope the photo above will cause you to pause a moment and remember all of the people who died in multiple tragedies in France last week. We on the Viking Hermod honoured the Parisians who passed away by staying aboard our bus as our guide led us in a moment of silence.
For us, Lyon was the fourth day after the tragedy and candles, quotations and signs like you see above were still displaying the grief as the city that’s the home of Interpol was trying to get back to normal.
Lyon is all about food…food that comes from great chefs like the much-honoured Paul Bocuse. But it’s is also famous for its “Bouchons Lyonnais” restaurants, many run by families who serve rustic, homey traditional food the way the French would eat at home.
They are everywhere.
But first it’s time to work up an appetite.
That meant I was heading across a couple of bridges — the Saone and the Rhone rivers dissect this city and our journey to Avignon continues on the Rhone). This is heading to the funicular to visit the imposing Notre-Dame de Fourviere, high up on the hills of Lyon. During the hours I was there, the church was closed but many people were lighting candles in the chapel.
It offers a great view of Lyon but a close look at the picture will show that a layer of smog was hanging over the city. It was a windless day and I assume that had something to do with it.
Below are three universities and numerous colleges that help to make this a young people’s city.
Silk was and still is important and, at one point, Lyon had 58,000 weavers. You can see passageways that the workers used to goon roads between buildings and courtyards in Old Lyon. For the most part, you can enjoy the city by walking.
Up at 6 a.m., I started scouring the city finding markets that were willing to feed me with far too many home-style foods.
Lunch meant this neat little soup restaurant on the western side of the Pont Bonaparte, near Cathedrale Saint-Jean Baptiste. Inside were bottles and bottles of homemade soup the locals were buying to go along with the baguettes sticking out of their bags.
Perfect! A bowl — actually a cardboard container — of home-made mushroom soup, a chicken and mushroom quenelles, some thin slices of rye bread, a very good glass of white house wine, an espresso to top it of and I didn’t need dinner this night, thank you.
Museums, markets, streets for only walking and a large shopping area with stores for shoppers from the wealthy to the regulars of the world.
Lyon hasn’t and don’t forget about the food.
Before closing, a few pictures…
These are rental bicycles, locked up, and each morning a bus with no seats but full of bicycles comes along to replace ones not working, to check all the air and the rental machine, and then moves on.
The city is full of art and sculptures. I like mine more real than abstract and this 20-foot sculpture was perfect. Above a main road, a gentle reminder to pick up flowers. The French love their flowers.
[Klaus Jerzembeck]
Thank you, Klaus Jerzembeck of England. He was also out early that morning and caught the city’s reflection in the Saone River.
The Viking Hermod is now moving along the Rhone and Monday will stop at the city of popes — Avignon. There, our 8-day Portraits of France cruise from Chalon-sur-Saone to Avignon will, sadly, end.
However, I’m not heading home yet. I’ll be joining another Viking ship in Passau — to get that Christmas feeling — all the way to Budapest.
Lots more is coming from the rivers of Europe.
All for now.
For a weekly newsletter from Ports and Bows with lots of cruise information and the best deals that we can find, click here to sign up: www.canada.com/newsletter.