By All Means Confused

From a Lyon guidebook:
"The 4 subway lines constitute the fastest means to move downtown, all means confused, by ensuring a East-West and North-South service road of Lyon and cities bordering. The 38 stations for the majority are equipped with facilities for the people with mobility reduced, and equipped with gantries to fight against the fraud."

Okey, dokey.

Green Roof, Blue Posts
Bellegard, France
June 2007

We tried our niece's technique of holding out the camera for a candid shot. We're on the train from Geneva to Lyon, having just finished our little exquisite lunch. I'm writing in my journal while listening to the Wicked soundtrack on my iPod (thank you Chad and Kristen for the wonderful evening, thank you Matthew for the tunes), while Dave is reading his pages and pages of stuff for his meetings in Lyon.

We arrived all of a sudden in Lyon, and scrambled off the train. With our rolling luggage, we headed to the Metro (subway) to get a carnet of tickets (10 tickets). Stairs, no escalator. Lug the luggage down the steps and then try to slide our credit card into the slot. However we Americans don't have "chips" in our credit cards, which means that the machine doesn't recognize us and won't "open" the slot. This makes for a few colorful and confusing moments until we figure it out. Back upstairs (lug, lug), get change, and then back downstairs, feeding the coin slot (the machine will recognize coins) until it belches forth 10 small metro tickets.

Our hotel is off Place Bellecour, a large square in the middle of Pres'quille with nothing more than the Tourist Office (which I soon learned to avoid, asking instead our hotel for info) and this lonely statue, which is usually decorated with teenagers.

Place Bellecour
Lyon, France
June 2007

Dave in front of our hotel. We're on a pedestrian-only shopping street. That is after 10 a.m. it's pedestrian. If you go out earlier, wild delivery men, scooters and hurrying mothers with children will about run you over.

We're here!

The next day I decided to head toward the old part of the city, and ended up walking UP Fourviere Hill, instead of using the Metro. Fourviere Hill is where the old Lyonaise citizens (around the time of the Romans) built their first city. They later had to abandon it and move to where the area of our hotel is because of water issues. I thought of women (of course it was the women) dragging buckets of water up the hill to cook with and do laundry. I imagine if it had been up to them, the city would have moved to the flatlands a lot sooner.

Rue Caillat
Lyon, France
June 2007

Montee du Gourguillon
Lyon, France
June 2007

Arches on the Way Up
Lyon, France
June 2007

So at the top, Roman ruins:

They're setting up some sort of festival that runs all summer, with musical performances, dance, etc. It begins after we leave, but it was fun to hear them run the sound checks with sort of European techno music.

Okay, that's enough ruins.

Basilque Notre-Dame de Fourviere
Lyon, France
June 2007

This is next door and up the hill from the ruins. Some wags have said it looks like an upside-down elephant. Apparently a miracle happened when Lyon was spared from the plague, so they commissioned a portrait of the Holy Family to be made in homage. Then they had to build a basilica to house it, which was completed somewhere in the 1800s, give or take a few years.

Patriotic Votives
Lyon, France
June 2007
(Remember that France's colors are red, white and blue.)

The picture is at the back, bathed in a blue light. The basilica has many turquoise and gilt mosaics, soaring columns (aren't they all soaring?) and highly decorated surfaces. On a hot muggy day, it was nice to sit in the cool, take a moment to reflect on times that I've had my own kind of plagues pass me by, and give thanks to Heavenly Father for these blessings. Churches like this can make you reflect while in the middle of touristing.

Double-Winged Angel
Basilica Notre-Dame
Lyon, France
June 2007

Blue Fence
Lyon, France
June 2007

Since I'm such a smart girl, I took the funicular DOWN the hill. I saw one our family's favorite cars all decorated in fish.

Lyon is known for its painted buildings. Here's one.

St. Nizier (I think) was a church I wandered upon. I like the different steeples.

Today was the day the elevator stopped working. For the next eight days they are going to enlarge it, but that means that I see these everytime I leave or return to my room. Did I mention we're on the 4th floor? (However, they call it the 3rd, as 0-level is the floor where you enter the hotel.)

I rested then headed over to the reception for all the people working on the Monograph (that's the document that all these scientists have been brought together to discuss, write and produce) through IARC. They had two choices for drinks: champagne or orange juice. I had water, and avoided the snacks as we were headed for dinner afterwards.

We met up with another colleague of Dave's and we all went to dinner at Le Sud. It wasn't until I was examining the bill that I realized that we were in eating one of Paul Bocuse's brasseries. He also has other directions: Le Nord, Le Ouest, etc. as well as the fancy one where one meal is equal to the cost of books for a college student for a semester. See food posts for pictures, but here's one of the table setting.