Lyon 1
I am in foreign again. Lyon, France, to be exact. I travelled yesterday, of which there is not an awful lot to report - lots of stress when the Eurostars were badly delayed, lots of relief when the staff transferred me onto an earlier service which got me in only 30 minutes after I should have arrived, with adequate time to get across Paris for my connection (and a stamp on my ticket to confirm the delay, so I could have got a later train if needed, but v glad I didn’t need to). Collected my Lyon CityCard from the shopping centre by Lyon main station, got to my hotel in the suburbs, and found a good supermarket (I’m in an aparthotel, with kitchenette, so I can both cook and save money).
This morning, though, it’s time to explore. Long, long diary below the cut. I’m enjoying remembering this place, so this is full of self-indulgence. No need to read unless minutiae appeal. I’ve been to Lyon before, but it was 18 years ago. It made a big impression - one of the first cities I really loved outside Belgium and Italy. It’s an edge-place, like both those countries, fully French and yet with a hint of Swiss. Southern and northern in equal parts. It sits on two rivers, the Saone and the Rhone. It’s really geographically organised, with hills on the west of the Saone, a flat bit (the Presqu’ile) between the rivers, running up into hills (the Croix-Rousse) to the north where it stops being a peninsula; and then the east bank of the Rhone where I am, flatter and full of modern development. I started today, deliberately, with the old parts. The oldest.
My hotel is out of the famous parts of town, but well connected, so I got a metro, another metro, and then a (super crowded) funicular railway to where I was going. The first use of my four days of Lyon CityCard (I didn’t activate it last night), which is a fantastic bargain arranged by the tourist office here (they are seriously good, very active). I’ve paid 50 Euros for it, which may sound a lot. But I have almost got my money’s worth already, as it includes all forms of public transport for four days, almost all the museums (definitely all those I want to see), a guided walk, a boat trip, and various other freebies. I think I’ve had 40 Euros of value already! Plus, no worries about having the right ticket for anything transportwise. I am sorted.
I was going up to where the city started, at a place called Fourviere, which is a corruption of a Latin name for the top of the hill overlooking the modern city. There’s a (to me) hideous modern basilica on top, which I didn’t want to visit again (you can't miss the outside, it sneaks into all photos of Lyon), but they haven’t covered all the Roman remains in new build. I could usually have gone directly to where I was aiming for, but one of the two funiculars that serve this very steep hill is currently being upgraded and is closed. So I went up to Fourviere, walked round the corner, and found the two Roman theatres cut into the hillside. I remember them so well, and it was lovely to see them again. It’s just an utterly spectacular sight, with a view across the whole city beyond. They weren’t at their best today, as there’s a festival taking place on the site later this month and they are fitting the sound stages. But it’s the shape and immediacy of a recognisable Roman theatre, and its Odeon buddy (a concert hall, basically) that I loved to see again. I also went into the Musee Lugdunum, which runs down the hill alongside, showing the incredibly rich archaeological evidence of the Roman occupation here. This was the ceremonial capital of all three Gauls, and a major ceramics centre so there’s a *lot*.
I’m trying not to overdo the tourism, and there’s something about returning to places that almost gives permission to enjoy in the way you want to, so I butterflied around the museum for an hour or so, rather than reading everything in depth. There are windows onto the theatres at times, so you get the Roman stuff in situ as well as indoors. Once I’d had enough, I walked down the hill to the medieval town. It’s a steep walk, not one you’d want to climb, and I’ve been having trouble with my knee, which hates stairs at the moment (goodness knows why, it was fine till recently - about the only thing it wasn’t knackered for). But having sat down most of the day yesterday, and not really wanting the rammed funicular again, I risked it. On gentle slopes I was fine; on the ones where you’re leaning backwards so as not to give into gravity, a bit more iffy. But it feels fine this evening, so hopefully not a dumb choice. It was good be to be walking anyway. The weather here is the kind that looks bad in photos but is quite nice to be out in - greyish but not cold or wet (mostly), pleasant breeze, enhancing greenery and flowers where they are out. I still wonder what exactly made the Romans pick the top of a hill so steep it’s almost unwalkable - they didn’t just put a shrine there, the initial Roman city plan is all up top, though they colonised the lower slopes and Presqu’ile soon enough. I know Rome is on hills, but they aren’t the kind that make visiting the river a penance.
The streets of medieval Vieux Lyon are just how I remember - narrow, magical, dirty, full of restaurants and tourist tat shops, and still surprisingly evocative. You could get ruthlessly bilked here, but equally there are lovely places to be. I walked some alleys, enjoyed remembering the spaces, and as ever failed to see into traboules, the cross-passages that are famous here, but also privately owned, locked off from nosey folk.
Eventually decided I’d better pick a lunch spot. Bless Google - had a quick look at the star ratings of everything in sight, ranging from 2.3 (“avoid”) to 4.5 (“fabulous”, oh but it’s a solid 3 course restaurant meal at 40 Euros and not what I fancy for lunch)… but if you walk 30 yards down this street… Le Bouchon Rouge, 4.9 stars, 19 Euros for 2 courses of lunch specials that I fancied. Parfait. A bouchon is a cork, but it’s also the name for Lyon-style bistros, which can be fantastic - unfortunately, many things calling themselves bouchons are pretty dire now. And they almost all do the same basic tourist menu, which hasn’t changed since last time I was here. Quenelles de brochet or andouillette or boudin, cervelles des canuts, a salad with magret… yawn. They are nice, but you can have too much of it. (The star rating is a bit misleading, it’s a very new place with only a few reviews. But it’s good, so far.) Starter was chevre crumble, served hipsterishly with the crumble at the bottom of a glass jar, whipped fresh cheese on top, and garnished with a few bits of gravlax. Main was noodles with mushrooms, beef and crème fraiche, in that order - definitely more veg than meat, which is fine by me, and very delicious rather than heavy.
Then I was planning to go to the tourist office to ask about booking my free boat trip when I realised I was across the river from the actual boat office, and just booked it with them - for later today, so I had time for another thing first. Which was the fabulous Musee des Tissus. When I was here last it was partly being remodelled, and also we came here straight off the plane and didn’t have either mood or time to do it justice. This was a much better visit, to the modern and old parts of the museum, and to see permanent collections and an exhibition. Because fabrics are so fragile, they rework even the permanent collections often, so this time it was all about Lyon’s silk trade (which is fine by me, it’s a massive local industry and I like learning about those), and then examples of a range of fabrics made here over 300 years or so, including for Versailles and for the most fabulous 1900-1930s styles. I have some photos which halfway do them justice.
But the exhibition was even more fabulous - a mix of star pieces from the collections, with material from the Musee des Arts Decoratifs next door (which is mostly closed unless you’re a group, woe), and with modern artworks, some in direct dialogue with the pieces. Their themes were wonderful - from pomegranates to dragons, picking up on design themes, and from transparency to gilding, picking up on looks. The textiles are fairly international, and the decorative arts collections more so, so they could put together wonderful cases like the one on gold, combining a 19th century Turkish robe with a 17th century bishop’s mitre and 18th century gents embroidered suit, Arab warrior's helmet... and several other pieces which all looked like they fitted the same aesthetic but covered 500 years and many cultures. Great, quiet, commentary on global commonalities. I had been a little sad not to see much opus anglicanum and Coptic textiles in the permanent collections, as I remember them being startlingly wonderful last time. But there were some examples in the exhibition, including a Coptic 7th century one with a reclining female nude, in brilliant colours. Just an amazing survival. Some of the new artworks were fab too. I remember a 'negative' of a court dress, making transparent and magical the skeleton of the fabric that actually got used.
This took a little while, and I also went back to a shop I had passed which was selling lots of chestnut products (I love chestnuts, couldn’t pass it by), which turned out to be totally empty and with the kind of friendly slightly desperate service that says this is a one-person project not going great. There were bright little signs saying they’d been open “un an deja!!”, and I bet they don’t make two years, unless they can ship in tourist crowds. But I bought some chestnut syrup to take home, and some biscuits which were discounted because past their best before date. Marginally helpful.
I’d been thinking I would pop over to the Abbey of st Martin d’Ainay, which is fairly nearby, but I had the kind of awkward amount of time left that is too much just to dawdle but not long enough to go somewhere, see something and get back comfortably in time (for the boat trip, which I could get onto from 16.30). I should have subsided into the first salon de thé I spotted, but I didn’t, and then they all turned into bars/cafes around the huge Place Bellecour which occupies the centre of the Presq’ile. And I didn’t want coffee or beer or wine, and didn’t really want to neck a long drink before a boat ride anyway. So I wandered, thought I’d found a handy answer with an open air café right by the boat, but there was a dickhead aggravating two girls who put me right off. So I took some photos of the river and killed some time.
It started to rain. Just a smidge. But not ideal for a boat ride if you’d rather be on the top uncovered deck for the views. Sigh. I’d paid upfront, so I went for it. There was a big group of Dutch tourists who took most of the covered cabin, and I didn’t fancy sitting without any views, so I did go onto the exposed deck, despite the rain, which increased, and the occasional chilly wind, depending which way we were facing. There were maybe 15 people up there at the start of the hour cruise. I was the only one by the end, though the last other holdouts were (urgh) two loud English blokes finding Foreign hilarious. I was about to go downstairs when they cracked, but I wasn’t about to inflict more of them on myself, so I did the last 20 minutes or so in gloriously peaceful isolation.
It was a simple route, looping up the Saone to the edge of the historic boundaries of Lyon on the Croix Rousse, turn round, go all the way back on ourselves and then down to where the Saone flows into the Rhone at the confluence, and back to where you started. You get pretty views of the old bit where I was this morning, and the opposite bank of the Presqu’ile where I was killing time just before (and where I will be more in the next couple of days - my free walking tour is hereabouts). You can see the old markers of the north and south of the city, and loads of retaining walls for the extremely sandy, crumbly hill of Fourviere. But there’s also a long stretch down towards the confluence which is a) super modern architecturally, and b) fascinating to realise how much of this is reclaimed land - this was a messy marshy island space till the 18th century when a man called Perrache started projects to embank and drain it. Now there’s a proper confluence, complete with a new quartier - which is all built since I last visited. I think I’m going there tomorrow (afternoon, and only if I feel like I’ve got feet for it, but I’d like to see the inside of the museum at the pointy end). If I don’t, at least I’ve had views of this completely new bit of town.
I was pretty cold and damp by the end, but a brisk walk down to the nearest metro was a quick fix. I went down two stops to Gare de Perrache (yes, him - it’s the city-centre station for the old parts, built on the reclaimed land), and then found my way onto the right tram. Getting the direction right is fun here - not just needing to know what the end stops are, but often the station entrances are just stairs onto one platform, and for the other platform you needed to cross the road up top. I’m learning. So is my knee. But considering I was travelling peak time it was all very relaxed. Lyon feels like a big, busy city, but not a stressful one. I do like it.
Dinner in the apartment tonight, chicken fillets with lemon, a wilted warm salad, some croutons from yesterday’s bread. Wine. Paris-Brest. Yum. I didn’t much want to be on the apartment balcony tonight (it has no view anyway, but it’s nice to think you might sit out with a glass of something). But it should be drier tomorrow…
This entry was originally posted at https://bruttimabuoni.dreamwidth.org/933184.html. You can comment here or there as you please!
This morning, though, it’s time to explore. Long, long diary below the cut. I’m enjoying remembering this place, so this is full of self-indulgence. No need to read unless minutiae appeal. I’ve been to Lyon before, but it was 18 years ago. It made a big impression - one of the first cities I really loved outside Belgium and Italy. It’s an edge-place, like both those countries, fully French and yet with a hint of Swiss. Southern and northern in equal parts. It sits on two rivers, the Saone and the Rhone. It’s really geographically organised, with hills on the west of the Saone, a flat bit (the Presqu’ile) between the rivers, running up into hills (the Croix-Rousse) to the north where it stops being a peninsula; and then the east bank of the Rhone where I am, flatter and full of modern development. I started today, deliberately, with the old parts. The oldest.
My hotel is out of the famous parts of town, but well connected, so I got a metro, another metro, and then a (super crowded) funicular railway to where I was going. The first use of my four days of Lyon CityCard (I didn’t activate it last night), which is a fantastic bargain arranged by the tourist office here (they are seriously good, very active). I’ve paid 50 Euros for it, which may sound a lot. But I have almost got my money’s worth already, as it includes all forms of public transport for four days, almost all the museums (definitely all those I want to see), a guided walk, a boat trip, and various other freebies. I think I’ve had 40 Euros of value already! Plus, no worries about having the right ticket for anything transportwise. I am sorted.
I was going up to where the city started, at a place called Fourviere, which is a corruption of a Latin name for the top of the hill overlooking the modern city. There’s a (to me) hideous modern basilica on top, which I didn’t want to visit again (you can't miss the outside, it sneaks into all photos of Lyon), but they haven’t covered all the Roman remains in new build. I could usually have gone directly to where I was aiming for, but one of the two funiculars that serve this very steep hill is currently being upgraded and is closed. So I went up to Fourviere, walked round the corner, and found the two Roman theatres cut into the hillside. I remember them so well, and it was lovely to see them again. It’s just an utterly spectacular sight, with a view across the whole city beyond. They weren’t at their best today, as there’s a festival taking place on the site later this month and they are fitting the sound stages. But it’s the shape and immediacy of a recognisable Roman theatre, and its Odeon buddy (a concert hall, basically) that I loved to see again. I also went into the Musee Lugdunum, which runs down the hill alongside, showing the incredibly rich archaeological evidence of the Roman occupation here. This was the ceremonial capital of all three Gauls, and a major ceramics centre so there’s a *lot*.
I’m trying not to overdo the tourism, and there’s something about returning to places that almost gives permission to enjoy in the way you want to, so I butterflied around the museum for an hour or so, rather than reading everything in depth. There are windows onto the theatres at times, so you get the Roman stuff in situ as well as indoors. Once I’d had enough, I walked down the hill to the medieval town. It’s a steep walk, not one you’d want to climb, and I’ve been having trouble with my knee, which hates stairs at the moment (goodness knows why, it was fine till recently - about the only thing it wasn’t knackered for). But having sat down most of the day yesterday, and not really wanting the rammed funicular again, I risked it. On gentle slopes I was fine; on the ones where you’re leaning backwards so as not to give into gravity, a bit more iffy. But it feels fine this evening, so hopefully not a dumb choice. It was good be to be walking anyway. The weather here is the kind that looks bad in photos but is quite nice to be out in - greyish but not cold or wet (mostly), pleasant breeze, enhancing greenery and flowers where they are out. I still wonder what exactly made the Romans pick the top of a hill so steep it’s almost unwalkable - they didn’t just put a shrine there, the initial Roman city plan is all up top, though they colonised the lower slopes and Presqu’ile soon enough. I know Rome is on hills, but they aren’t the kind that make visiting the river a penance.
The streets of medieval Vieux Lyon are just how I remember - narrow, magical, dirty, full of restaurants and tourist tat shops, and still surprisingly evocative. You could get ruthlessly bilked here, but equally there are lovely places to be. I walked some alleys, enjoyed remembering the spaces, and as ever failed to see into traboules, the cross-passages that are famous here, but also privately owned, locked off from nosey folk.
Eventually decided I’d better pick a lunch spot. Bless Google - had a quick look at the star ratings of everything in sight, ranging from 2.3 (“avoid”) to 4.5 (“fabulous”, oh but it’s a solid 3 course restaurant meal at 40 Euros and not what I fancy for lunch)… but if you walk 30 yards down this street… Le Bouchon Rouge, 4.9 stars, 19 Euros for 2 courses of lunch specials that I fancied. Parfait. A bouchon is a cork, but it’s also the name for Lyon-style bistros, which can be fantastic - unfortunately, many things calling themselves bouchons are pretty dire now. And they almost all do the same basic tourist menu, which hasn’t changed since last time I was here. Quenelles de brochet or andouillette or boudin, cervelles des canuts, a salad with magret… yawn. They are nice, but you can have too much of it. (The star rating is a bit misleading, it’s a very new place with only a few reviews. But it’s good, so far.) Starter was chevre crumble, served hipsterishly with the crumble at the bottom of a glass jar, whipped fresh cheese on top, and garnished with a few bits of gravlax. Main was noodles with mushrooms, beef and crème fraiche, in that order - definitely more veg than meat, which is fine by me, and very delicious rather than heavy.
Then I was planning to go to the tourist office to ask about booking my free boat trip when I realised I was across the river from the actual boat office, and just booked it with them - for later today, so I had time for another thing first. Which was the fabulous Musee des Tissus. When I was here last it was partly being remodelled, and also we came here straight off the plane and didn’t have either mood or time to do it justice. This was a much better visit, to the modern and old parts of the museum, and to see permanent collections and an exhibition. Because fabrics are so fragile, they rework even the permanent collections often, so this time it was all about Lyon’s silk trade (which is fine by me, it’s a massive local industry and I like learning about those), and then examples of a range of fabrics made here over 300 years or so, including for Versailles and for the most fabulous 1900-1930s styles. I have some photos which halfway do them justice.
But the exhibition was even more fabulous - a mix of star pieces from the collections, with material from the Musee des Arts Decoratifs next door (which is mostly closed unless you’re a group, woe), and with modern artworks, some in direct dialogue with the pieces. Their themes were wonderful - from pomegranates to dragons, picking up on design themes, and from transparency to gilding, picking up on looks. The textiles are fairly international, and the decorative arts collections more so, so they could put together wonderful cases like the one on gold, combining a 19th century Turkish robe with a 17th century bishop’s mitre and 18th century gents embroidered suit, Arab warrior's helmet... and several other pieces which all looked like they fitted the same aesthetic but covered 500 years and many cultures. Great, quiet, commentary on global commonalities. I had been a little sad not to see much opus anglicanum and Coptic textiles in the permanent collections, as I remember them being startlingly wonderful last time. But there were some examples in the exhibition, including a Coptic 7th century one with a reclining female nude, in brilliant colours. Just an amazing survival. Some of the new artworks were fab too. I remember a 'negative' of a court dress, making transparent and magical the skeleton of the fabric that actually got used.
This took a little while, and I also went back to a shop I had passed which was selling lots of chestnut products (I love chestnuts, couldn’t pass it by), which turned out to be totally empty and with the kind of friendly slightly desperate service that says this is a one-person project not going great. There were bright little signs saying they’d been open “un an deja!!”, and I bet they don’t make two years, unless they can ship in tourist crowds. But I bought some chestnut syrup to take home, and some biscuits which were discounted because past their best before date. Marginally helpful.
I’d been thinking I would pop over to the Abbey of st Martin d’Ainay, which is fairly nearby, but I had the kind of awkward amount of time left that is too much just to dawdle but not long enough to go somewhere, see something and get back comfortably in time (for the boat trip, which I could get onto from 16.30). I should have subsided into the first salon de thé I spotted, but I didn’t, and then they all turned into bars/cafes around the huge Place Bellecour which occupies the centre of the Presq’ile. And I didn’t want coffee or beer or wine, and didn’t really want to neck a long drink before a boat ride anyway. So I wandered, thought I’d found a handy answer with an open air café right by the boat, but there was a dickhead aggravating two girls who put me right off. So I took some photos of the river and killed some time.
It started to rain. Just a smidge. But not ideal for a boat ride if you’d rather be on the top uncovered deck for the views. Sigh. I’d paid upfront, so I went for it. There was a big group of Dutch tourists who took most of the covered cabin, and I didn’t fancy sitting without any views, so I did go onto the exposed deck, despite the rain, which increased, and the occasional chilly wind, depending which way we were facing. There were maybe 15 people up there at the start of the hour cruise. I was the only one by the end, though the last other holdouts were (urgh) two loud English blokes finding Foreign hilarious. I was about to go downstairs when they cracked, but I wasn’t about to inflict more of them on myself, so I did the last 20 minutes or so in gloriously peaceful isolation.
It was a simple route, looping up the Saone to the edge of the historic boundaries of Lyon on the Croix Rousse, turn round, go all the way back on ourselves and then down to where the Saone flows into the Rhone at the confluence, and back to where you started. You get pretty views of the old bit where I was this morning, and the opposite bank of the Presqu’ile where I was killing time just before (and where I will be more in the next couple of days - my free walking tour is hereabouts). You can see the old markers of the north and south of the city, and loads of retaining walls for the extremely sandy, crumbly hill of Fourviere. But there’s also a long stretch down towards the confluence which is a) super modern architecturally, and b) fascinating to realise how much of this is reclaimed land - this was a messy marshy island space till the 18th century when a man called Perrache started projects to embank and drain it. Now there’s a proper confluence, complete with a new quartier - which is all built since I last visited. I think I’m going there tomorrow (afternoon, and only if I feel like I’ve got feet for it, but I’d like to see the inside of the museum at the pointy end). If I don’t, at least I’ve had views of this completely new bit of town.
I was pretty cold and damp by the end, but a brisk walk down to the nearest metro was a quick fix. I went down two stops to Gare de Perrache (yes, him - it’s the city-centre station for the old parts, built on the reclaimed land), and then found my way onto the right tram. Getting the direction right is fun here - not just needing to know what the end stops are, but often the station entrances are just stairs onto one platform, and for the other platform you needed to cross the road up top. I’m learning. So is my knee. But considering I was travelling peak time it was all very relaxed. Lyon feels like a big, busy city, but not a stressful one. I do like it.
Dinner in the apartment tonight, chicken fillets with lemon, a wilted warm salad, some croutons from yesterday’s bread. Wine. Paris-Brest. Yum. I didn’t much want to be on the apartment balcony tonight (it has no view anyway, but it’s nice to think you might sit out with a glass of something). But it should be drier tomorrow…
This entry was originally posted at https://bruttimabuoni.dreamwidth.org/933184.html. You can comment here or there as you please!