We loved this town. So beautiful with so many interesting neighborhoods. We'll be back
After our day of serious Lyonnaise food (which followed a week of serious meals on the boat), we decided to make use of the fact that we're staying in an apartment and do some urban foraging - not at all difficult in this town. First we fortified ourselves with breakfast out in Vieux Lyon where we had the requisite cafe creme and a gallette complete - the latter is a buckwheat crepe with ham and cheese inside and a fried egg tucked in so that the yolk peeks out. Next we hit the farmer's market around the corner from our hotel for some cheese and veg. Then our big outing for the day was to walk across town to Les Halles, the food market which is sponsored by Paul Bocuse, known as the most famous chef in Lyon (or so we're told). There we got some imterestimg extras like tiny Armenian eggplant rollatini, handmade blue potato chips, a really tasty eggplant and pepper tapenade, and some fresh butter and lettuces. A couple of stops on the way home for wine, bread, and a few extras like salad dressing and we had a beautiful lighter dinner than what we've been eating. No suffering here. (Sorry if the poctures aren't in the right order. Still struggling with uploading them.
Yesterday we stuck a little closer to home and had a relaxed day. Went for a walk around the neighborhood making only one "goal-oriented stop" (see next post). We've enjoyed our stay at the Hotel Citadines near the Place Jacobins. It's right in the heart of the City with several plazas with surrounding cafes to sit at, right near the Saone river with easy a cess across a foot bridge to the old town, and lots of restaurants within the surrounding few blocks. There's also a great fruit and vegetable store, a bakery, a farmer's market, a supermarket, and even a healthfood store so I can get gliten-free products - all within 2 blocks. We were initially worried about the proximity to restaurants ans bars from a noise perspective, but the double glazed windows do a great job of keeping the sound out. Beds verycomfortable. And all for 100 euros a night. Pretty darn good.
Linda actually had her 60th birthday on the boat. She had asked that I not request a special cake or singing, but as I was leaving our stateroom, the cleaner asked me which one of us was having the birthday. As I walked over to meet Linda in the dinig room, the Maitre D mentioned a birthday as well. We realized they have our passport information and must track it that way. So in addition to the regular desert, the waitstaff brought a cake for the whole table and sang happy birthday in about 6 accents and possibly as many different keys, but with great earnestness. Made Linda smile in the end.
Linda took many more photos, but here are two to give an idea. One is of two of the office buildings. The guidebooks note that there is a "Cube Jaune" (yellow cube), but we were never sure if this (to us) green cube was it or whether we just didn't find it. The other photo is a shot of the bank of lounging sofas we found in the supermall (how civilized) and in the background you can see some of the apartment buildings. There's also a marina between the mall and the apartments.
Wednesday was the departure date from our boat, but our plan was to stay on in Lyon for a few days so we asked for a 3:00 taxi and strolled around the neighborhood near the boat. The southern end of the peninsula we were docked at is called Le Confluence - where the Rhone and Saone rivers come together. We decided that this area is Lyon's DUMBO. It is an old warehouse area now converted to upscale apartment buildings, art studios, and a very interesting museum. The Musee des Confluence takes the neighborhood's name and expands it to be the confluence of ideas, cultures, and art. Very eclectic and engaging collection with many interactive exhibits that have elements of anthropology, natural history, art, sociology, and politics. Our favorite was a small room with an interactive sceen in a table in the center of the room. You had to drag different inventions together to form the elements of a new invention - e.g. photographs, sound recording, light projection, and film to make cinematography. You are coached by a screen on the wall with a man's head Hmming, ahing and advising as you drag and drop. If you assemble all the correct elements, you get a short talk by the man on how the new invention came together.
Linda loved the atchitecture of the place and spent a happy time photographing from multiple perspectives. We had lunch in the rooftop cafe looking over the two rivers.
Catching up now that we have a decent internet signal. Tuesday we visited Beaune. It's a sweet little town that is known as the wine capital of Burgundy in the Cote d'Or. The highlight of the day was a visit to the Hotel Dieu a charity hospital founded in 1442 which continued to serve its patients until the 1980s. It was initially funded by one of the Dukes of Burgundy and staffed by an order of nuns as a place for the poor to find care, but they became known as such good care providers that noble people also wanted to be patients there. So while the funding came initially from the Duke, it was augmented later by gifts from grateful patients and their families. In particular they were gifted with vineyards, the income from which supported the institution down through the centuries. Other gifts included some extraordinary artworks, many of which are still on display there ( I didn't try to take pictures of them, but you can see some of them at www.hospices-de-beaune.com)
The large ward for the common folk has beds along both walls and a chapel at the end. Those beds typically had 2 people in each with no regard to gender of the occupants. The nobles had a separate room with larger beds and each got his or her own. The nuns provided care and food. Because it was expensive to pay the lay pharmacist, nuns eventually trained in pharmacy as well - some of the first women to do so. There was a river running under the hospital into which all the refuse could be deposited and carried away by opning one of the trap doors in the floor. I could have spent many more hours there since it is also a kind of medical museum where you can see the developments of techniques and instruments through the centuries.
After our visit to the Hotel Dieu we went to a local wine merchant's cellar where we had a wine tasting and talk followed by lunch in a local restaurant.
Yesterday we lunched at Cafe Sillon where we had oignons farci served with fennel on a bed of pimento puree, hangar steak with purple potato puree and carrots, and poached cod with pickled radishes and braised baby onions There were other flourishes, but I can't remember them. Should have asked for a copy of the menu.
Later in the day we walked from Vieux Lyon to the Brasserie Georges. After about 20 minutes of walking we stopped to be sure of directions. The lady we asked told us to keep going on that street and then up and around the train station, or perhaps she said under the station or through it? None of us was completely certain. She initially told us it was quite far to walk, but when she looked down at our (of course sensible) shoes she changed her mind and said that we had "chaussres bon" so we could probably make it. When we got closer, we could see the restaurant and the station, but also a 4-lane highway with on and off ramps between us and it. We ended up climbing over a wall, sidling through a parking lot, trying to stay against the wall of the ramps, and eventually having to negotiate across several lanes of hyped up commuters trying to get home. Quite an adventure for these 60 year old legs. Linda kept trying to be the voice of reason, but John and I dragged her along. Eventually we got there intact (though our clothes looked a little worse for wear).
Our reward was an old fashioned dinner in an Art Deco beer-hall/restaurant from the 19th century with hearty peasant cuisine my Alsatian grandmother would have approved of. Among the dishes were seafood bisque (which evidently involves a laborious process of simmering and then pulverizing the shells), poached smoked pike over creamed lentils, wine braised beef, quenelles (fish mousse dumplings), broiled trout, floating island, and frozen nougat. The most interesting dish to me was the french onion soup which came with a glass of egg yolk whisked into madeira. The waiter lifted up the corner of the cheese layer on top of the soup and added the egg- madeira mixture to the soup below so that the egg yolk gets cooked in the soup. Good eats and great company.
