I'm getting close to using up my allotment of file size on my blog. I thought, "Well, hell - I can spend an extra $40 bucks and get quintuple the file space. Or I can move my pictures over to my Photo Album area."
So, that's what I did. Please click on the "Photo Album" area to see the pictures of my trip to Lyon.
We got to Saint-Etienne on Sunday afternoon around 2 p.m., had lunch at Le Musee d'Art Moderne, then they took us to the hotel to freshen up. As I've said before, the trick for traveling east to a time zone that is six or more hours from your home is to stay up as much as you can during the day. So, our host, Dominic Baker, took us to Lyon to walk through the Old City of Lyon or Vieux Lyon.
(A quick lesson in French - Lyon is pronounced LEE-yo with a long "o". Some English speaking people have called it Lyons in the past, but there seems to be a growing political correct movement over the years to pronounce cities the way the locals do it - Peking/Beijing; Bombay/Mumbai; Lyons/Lyon.)
Lyon is France's second largest city. It's in a highly industrialized area of SE France and boasts a metro population of 1.6 million. It's only about 35 miles from Saint-Etienne to Lyon via a scenic highway that weaves through a valley.
The Old City of Lyon dates back to the first century A.D. when it was founded by Romans who built a number of buildings and theaters on a hill over looking the modern city of Lyon. Lyon was part of the Gallo-Roman empire and was inhabited by the Romans until the 9th century. The hill - called Fourviere ("the hill that prays") - has a good Gallo-Roman museum, as well as two ancient amphitheaters and the Basilica Notre Dame de Fourviere.
One last thing I have to say - Lyon has the cleanest parking garages I've ever seen. They actually had people - on a Sunday afternoon! - cleaning windows, sweeping the floor of parking ramp and wiping down the entrance and exit gates. No oil spots, no dirt, no debris. It looked brand new. Dominic (who is British) told us, "The French have some phobia about dirt in their parking garages."
Vieux Lyon is certainly a neat place to go and look around. I only wish we could have had dinner at one of the small restaurants. But they're making noises that they want us to come back each year. I'll be voting for an evening in Lyon if that happens.
