Wednesday June 5, 2019

We wake up to a beautiful day and Carol starts us out by making an amazing breakfast from our grocery excursion. Today we will learn about Lugdunum (Lyon) which was founded in 43 A.D. Lugdunum was a transportation hub for the administration of Roman Gaul and the Roman Emperors Claudius and Caracalla were both born here. To learn more, we leave the apartment and head back to old Lyon. From there, we need to get back up Fourviere Hill. Today, we go the easy route and take the funicular which has a stop near the Roman Theaters and Gallo Roman Museum. We start at the Roman Theaters. The larger theater was built during the reign of the Emperor Augustus (15 B.C.) and held up to 11,000 spectators. The smaller theater, an odeon, was acoustically designed for speeches and songs. The larger theater is still used today for concerts and other events with about 4,500 people as its capacity. We walk around the corner and enter the Gallo Roman Museum. It is free with our Lyon City card and includes an audio guide. The museum takes you on a chronological tour of ancient Lyon beginning in prehistoric times and through the Gallo Roman era. The artifacts were all found locally. There is an unusual display of the remains of a bronze ritual chariot ( four wheels, a bucket, and base) from 700 B.C. There is an interactive model of Lyon which explains the history of Lugdunum. In the second century, it was a city of 50,000 inhabitants with Gauls and Romans living side by side. A bronze tablet immortalizes a speech given by Emperor Claudius in 48 A.D. integrating the Gauls into the Roman empire and allowing them to sit in the Roman senate. Moving along, we see a water pump made of oak wood with bronze rings for pistons. It was discovered in 1975 while building the subway. There is also a bronze statue of Neptune from the second century, which was discovered in the Rhone river in 1859. It is the only big bronze statue from here as most statues were destroyed upon their discovery for re use of the metal. As we progress through the museum, there are restored mosaic floors from the homes of wealthy merchants. The history in this museum ends with the onset of Christianity. We enjoy our visit and the audio guide did a good job of explaining many of the displays. Between the theaters and the museum, we spent about two hours here.

We take the funicular back down the hill and then walk towards where we will meet for a walking tour of Lyon that is at 1500. We have some time to kill and notice that the Museum of Textiles and Decorative Arts is nearby and free with the City Card. I am not sure I want to check it out but Carol is interested so we make the journey to it. The museum was actually founded in the 1800’s to show off the discerning tastes of Lyons silk manufacturers. It holds the worlds most valuable collection of textiles dating back over 4,000 years. There are lots of silk work in the form of dresses, coats, etc as well as items made from other fabrics. The Decorative Arts side includes tapestries and rooms from the aristocratic homes of 18th Century Lyon. Carol seems to enjoy it, while overall I am just mildly interested. It does not help that there is not one sign in English to explain what you are looking at. It does take our time down to where we only have 15 minutes to wait for our tour guide. We find where we were told to wait and the 15 minutes go by without any other tourists showing up and more importantly, no tour guide either. We decide to hurry and walk the .75 miles to the Tourist Office to find out what is going on. When we get close, we see a group outside the office and discover that we were told the wrong place to meet. We basically missed some introductory information on the square we are standing in. The tour progresses back towards old town explaining the 1500 to 1800 history of the area. Our main interest in this tour was to see the traboules. The traboules were passageways within the inner courtyards of buildings which linked the 3 main north south streets of old Lyon. They provided shelter from the elements when unfinished silk goods were transported from one stage of production to the next. In more modern times, the French Resistance was able to use these secret passageways to get to and from meetings without having to travel onto the streets of Lyon. There are over 400 of these passageways with about 40 of them open for public use. The courtyards and passages you enter from the street are very cool and interesting. Each has its own flair with pastel colors and different architecture. After visiting the traboules, we politely excuse ourselves from the end of the tour as we want to take a boat tour down the Saone River, and need to see if we can get a seat on the last boat of the day which leaves at 1700.  

We get to the ticket booth and secure our seats on the boat which will leave in about 15 minutes, so all is working out. The boat leaves on time and the weather is perfect for a late afternoon cruise. We are sitting on the open-air top deck which in itself is a wonderful thing. It is a relaxing way to end our tour day and although they point out some history and sights, it is the modern architecture further down the river that really grabs our attention. We go from the old town Renaissance riverfront to the new Lyon riverfront. There is a neon green building with pencil sharpener looking indents, an orange building with a swiss cheese exterior, an empire strikes back spacecraft looking building, and many more interesting examples of modern architecture. An hour later, we are off the boat and make the short walk back to our room. We do not have a lot of time to relax as we have dinner reservations at 1930 and definitely need to freshen up. Even so, we manage to enjoy a nice pre dinner beer in the apartment.

We complete another 300 steps round trip from the apartment and walk to Bouchon Tupin which was rated the #2 restaurant in town on trip advisor. A bouchon is a type of restaurant found in Lyon that serves traditional Lyonnaise cuisine. We decide to get the 3-course special which allows you to pick an appetizer, main course, and dessert. Of course, we will have to have some French wine with our meal. The atmosphere is nice and the owner and waiters are very friendly and helpful. Our appetizers were Herring with potatoes for Carol which she described as a flavor explosion and a goat cheese salad with haddock for me. Both were excellent. The main course consisted of braised pig cheeks with parmesan and red wine sauce and

Quenelle Lyonnaise with pike in a Lobster bisque sauce and basmati rice. More tasty goodness. The Quenelle is a Lyon specialty with the pike and rice covered with a pastry shell surrounded by a lobster bisque type sauce. It was incredibly flavorful and filling. Could the meal get any better at this point. Yes, it can. Dessert was Praline Pie, another Lyon specialty and Creamy rice pudding with granola and salted butter caramel sauce. The praline pie was delicious but the rice pudding was incredible. I think it was the best I have ever had. With our hunger more than satisfied, we strolled back to our apartment, climbed the 150 steps up and called it a night. More Lyon tomorrow. Good night.

Expenses

Les Toits de Lyon Apartment 99E

Roman Gallo Museum 8E (free with the Lyon City Card)

Museum of Textiles and Decorative Arts 20E (free with the Lyon City Card)

River Cruise 26E (free with the Lyon City Card)

Dinner at Bouchon Tupin 58E

Miles Walked 7 Miles