October 4, 2023
Lyon!
We took today off the bikes to look around Lyon just a bit. The third largest city of France, Lyon has a lot to offer and we barely scratched the surface. It sits at the confluence of the Saone and Rhone rivers, which merge into the Rhone near the city center.
I begin this at our hotel room door - each door is painted with the graphic of a famous French person, we got Ampere, fitting I thought for two scientists!
Outside you can see the amazing stone colour of the hotel walls. This was a monastery back in the day.
The courtyard inside the hotel is impressive in its own right.
Walking the grounds of the hotel on our way to the Roman ampitheater.
The "odeon", the smaller of the 2 amphitheaters. This one held about 3,000 spectators and was for music and rhetoric (speeches).
A view of the complex from inside the museum which is adjacent. The larger amphitheater is near while the odeon is further away, but visible.
A very well appointed museum showing artifacts discovered in the area from the Bronze age up through Roman times - Lyon was the seat of Roman power in Gaul. Very impressive preserved mosaic floors in the museum from Roman times. These guys below were in houses and supposedly scared off evil spirits.
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Continuing on our walk we came to the Basilica Notre Dame of Fouviere, and took a moment to look out over the city. You can see both rivers parallel to each other travelling left to right in the photo below. The near one is the Saone, the Rhone is more distant but lined with green trees. Notice the low level of buildings, kept that way by city ordinance we assume.
Then into the basilica. I am not a "church guy", but did notice the coloured lights playing on the blonde sandstone from the stained glass was particularly arresting. And the rose windows were very, very good.
Then we descended down to river level (a lot of stairs) and into Vieux Lyon. Lots of curbside restaurants, boulangeries, chocolateries, and in general - eateries! Oh yes, and tourists. I stood firm and had no gelato.
On the way back up we took the funicular, which took us from river level to the basilica. Then it was a fairly short walk to our Hotel Fourvier. An easy day walking around, and its back on the bikes tomorrow.
We will start tomorrow riding our bikes down the hill (pretty much the same way we rode up, but faster) to the train station, taking a train to Le Peage de Rouissilion, and then biking the rest of the way to Tournon-sur-Rhone.
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