I shall interrupt the telling of our fabulous Mediterranean Cruise with a brief report on our most recent home exchange journey right here in France, our first home exchange in ages.

Since we sold our designated exchange place in Costa Rica a few years back, we didn’t really warm to the idea of exchanging our home and its precious content. Alright, I didn’t like the idea at all, while my husband was ready to take off into the blue yonder without worries.

We live in an old and fragile home that has many quirks and idiosyncrasies, little things, like door handles that have to be turned just so … Living in a place like that, one becomes accustomed to its moods and learns to treat it gently. It is difficult for me to trust strangers to do the same.

On the other hand – isn’t there always another point of view? – our days aren’t all that plentiful any more, and we would like to see a few more exciting places before utter decrepitude reigns.

One of these places is the city of Lyon, Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes, France. We’ve wanted to take a sejourn in Lyon for ages, but it never seemed to work out. What better place, I finally agreed, to get back to our old home exchange habits than a fairly short “inaugural” exchange with a couple in Lyon?

Our potential exchange partners C and H were agreeable and after the usual preliminary arrangements, we found ourselves in Lyon on Thursday, July 27, 2023, at 16h56. It was easy to be so precise because we took the train rather than drive. Our apartment, okay C and H’s, was airy and spacious, and the parquet floor had just the right amount of creaking to feel like home. Our new neighbourhood was also perfect with its offerings of bakeries, charcuterie, bio veg, beer &. wine, all within one block, and plenty of restaurants everywhere.

BTW, that Gummibär also appears in variations on my Instagram page

The remaining days of July

On our first morning in Lyon, we took la passerelle, the nearest footbridge across the river for a tentative look around Vieille Ville, the old city centre nestled into a soft curve of the Saône. Funnily enough, the first structure we noticed when crossing the river was the Elephant and Castle Pub. Maybe we should’ve gone to quiz night … never mind! (we had gotten a taste of the British obsession with “Team Trivia” on our cruise, and quite enjoyed participating)

The little medievally structure squeezed between its larger brethren took my breath away, even from a distance. Close up, it proved itself just as adorable with its renaissance style symmetrical window casings with gothic ornamentation. This pretty façade has been protected since 1927. The building was constructed in 1516, possibly for a magistrate named Claude de Bourg. Currently, the restaurant at street level, called Nacre, serves oysters, naturally [la narcre = mother-of-pearl]. Most of them were raised in the Île d’Oléron-Marennes oyster farms near our home 😁

Walking through the pedestrian zone, we took in the sights and sounds of Old Town during summer break in France.

These pink things are lyonnaise pralines, mostly almonds coated with caramelised sugar dyed pink. They reminded me of gebrannte Mandeln, but were not as tasty. In Lyon that signature pink sugar is used to coat all manners of sweet stuff, including but not limited to brioche [sweet buns] studded with bits of praline, called Saint-Genix.

When we came across the display windows above, I was amazed to see this shop dedicated to the Little Prince. I have several versions of the book in German, English, and French – but an entire store? Ignorant me didn’t know that monsieur le comte de Saint-Exupéry was born in Lyon!

During our walks through the city, we often encountered groups of kids busy with urban summer camp activities. Like the youngsters below listening to a history docent explaining lyonnais events to the children, yes, including dates, I heard her! In France, even small children are considered able to focus and learn, and you often see parents patiently explain how the French world works. In the second picture, a group of campers passed us offering cheery bonjours with their sweet little voices. That’s another lovely French custom, to always politely greet others.

This splendid Lyonnais Lion guards the Place de la Basoche and its surrounding Tuscan-style cityscape. The buildings here – now the Musée Cinéma et Miniature – used to be closely associated with the local justice system. Since the early 15th century the complex was an annex of the Palais de Justice and a home of the Brotherhood of the Basoche, an organisation of future lawyers and judges not unlike todays university fraternities, with an equal tendency for mischief. As a matter of fact, the rascals were eventually banned outright because they terrorised the entire neighbourhood.

People watching @Place St-Jean while cooling down with an ice-cold sirop de menthe …

The juxtaposition of two major churches, la Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourvière above …

and la Cathédrale Saint-Jean-Baptiste below.

From here, we popped into the Vieux Lyon metro & funicular station just a half a block further on to learn the system for future excursions. The City of Lyon very nicely provides multi-lingual volunteers in the subway stations with the highest frequency of foreign tourists, to help us navigate the public transport. Thank you, Lyon! For example, this is the note one of these helpers wrote for me a few days later to clarify two opposing tram directions when I was thoroughly confused. Très cool !

On our leisurely walk back home from Old Town we had the opportunity to enjoy views of the brilliantly illuminated signature basilica of Fourvière and some other tidbits.

Not a bad first day in Lyon, which we celebrated with great enthusiasm with a tex-mex, well, actually a cal-mex dinner at Two Amigos around the corner. Miam miam 🌮

The next day was supposed to be dedicated to Gallo-Romain exploration, but that highly anticipated adventure fell flat on its face. The amphitheater in Croix-Rousse was a sadly neglected sorry sight surrounded by wasteland calling itself a garden. There is another sight dedicated to antiquity in Lyon, but after this shocking display, we didn’t bother with a pilgrimage to Fourvière. Back home, the small town of Saintes, Charente-Maritime, is doing a vastly superior job in preserving their Gallo-Romain patrimony. I was disappointed, because Lyon/Lugdunum was THE major Roman trading center in Gallia, and it was directly connected to Saintes/Mediolanum Civetas Santorum through the Via Agrippa. Saintes was the river port on which flat-bottomed barges transported goods on the Charente to and from the Atlantic coast. Oh, well.

On the way to the amphitheater, however, we came across the most marvellous sight of two stunning lions. So intriguing, so mesmerising that I had to present to you my Tableau of Egyptian Lions:

These lovely lions have a long and fascinating history, even though they are only copies of copies of the ancient Egyptian originals. When the Roman general and architect Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, yes, the very same guy who designed the road system in Gallia, built the Pantheon in Rome, he included a mammoth fountain to grace the forecourt of the temple. Among other sculptures, Agrippa selected four lions that had been brought to Rome from the Ptolemaïc Empire in Egypt. Copies of these water-spouting Egyptian cats were then used by Pope Sixtus V in the late 1580s for his own building project, when he ordered the ancient Roman Alessandrina aqueduct to be restored and outfitted with a splendid fountain. A further few hundred years on, in the early 1820s, the city of Lyon wanted to dress up Place Sathonay and the stairs leading up to the gardens above, but they didn’t want to spent all that much on the scheme, so they consulted with local son and famous sculpture François-Frédéric Lemot. He suggested to re-cast a certain pair of Egyptian lions the moulds of which just happened to be in the possession of the Fonderie Royale du Creusot, a royal foundry near Lyon. Clever boy, that one.

A few images taken on our way home.

Dinner that night was supposed to be at an udon noodle place, but it was closed. Instead we dined at the lovely Notre Maison Bouchon, we were after all in Lyon!

Quenelle de brochet, a dumpling filled with poached pike, on top, and my delicious stew below, sabodet aux lentilles – pork sausage cooked for hours in a red wine broth then served in a lentil stew. Both were excellent dishes and the atmosphere in the restaurant was great. Our waitress was a bit gruff at first, trying to make sure we weren’t expecting American fast food, or G_d forbid, healthy salads. A bouchon is a blue collar joint that serves pork, every last bit of the pig one can possibly consume. To clarify, the motto of the restaurant was: “Nous gardons la salade pour les chèvres” [we save the salad for the goats] 😎 The server turned out to be a Mexican national from Puebla, a city my husband knows quite well. She gave us great tips for Mexican restaurants in Lyon, even one that may serve poblano peppers, my favourite chilli!

One of the following days was given over to mall walking, both indoors and outdoors. The specific reason was a search for Sketcher shoes for my husband, but just having the opportunity to browse through a variety of shops and department stores is a treat for us, as we live in a small town without an abundance of shopping choices.

Walking to our nearest Metro station, Hôtel de Ville-Louis Pradel, we had lovely views of the buildings around Place de Terreaux and Place de la Comédie.

The Place de Terreaux in all its glory. Straight ahead is the Hôtel de Ville de Lyon, city hall, to the right the Musée des Beaux-Arts, the largest art museum in France outside of Paris, of course, and on the left the famous-infamous Bartholdi Fountain. In the link, you’ll find the hilarious story behind the fountain I took from the website of travel writer and pod-caster Janine Marsh.

The fountain does look pretty fabulous, but I had to take my picture at an odd angle because there was so much garbage floating in the basin, very sad, really.

City hall front and back, plus the Opéra Nouvel on Place de la Comédie, and a couple of other impressions in the area. I privately named the opera house the Quonset Hut of Song, but don’t tell anyone …

For our shopping excursion, we traveled quite a bit on Metro and Tram, switching from Place Bellecour/Rue de la République,

to Confluence, to Part-Dieu. Fortunately the transport system is easy to learn, but it was quite an exhausting day, and we were very happy about the welcome sight of our lovely neighbourhood!