Lyon 2

Fiona came to visit us in Lyon during our third week.  She managed to find a delightful little hotel just off Place Terraux, which was also very close to our apartment.  Place Terraux is one of those magnificent European squares surrounded by impressive buildings.  The Musee Beaux Arts, which is housed in a former Abbey, runs along one side and the Hotel de Ville, or town hall runs along another side.  There is also a very imposing neo-classical statue and fountain in the middle of the square.  Fiona arrived in Lyon on a Wednesday and the weather was very warm until Friday, so on Wednesday night we took the opportunity to have a drink at one of the cafes in Place Terraux.

Place Terraux, with Hotel de Ville centre, and Musee des Beaux Arts right

On Thursday night a few of us from the school went out to play ‘les billiards’ with one of the teachers, Olivier.  Unfortunately Dale kept beating Olivier, taunting him along the way and accusing him of making up self-serving rules (Ed – come on: ‘if the white is touching the cushion, you can move it a full diameter away from the cushion’?; I don’t think so).  I don’t think Olivier had had so much fun in years as he seemed to spend most of the evening giggling.  Olivier was probably the most inexperienced teacher we had but he was extremely sweet.

On Friday night we revisited the Passagere Peniche with Fiona and Will, who is an American living in Prague and who works for the language school.  He spent a week at the school in our class.  After drinks, Dale, Fiona and I went off to a charming little restaurant called La Tibouren on the left bank of the Rhone.  It was a very small restaurant in a small side street.  The menu was even smaller but everything was delicious and the chef came out to explain the menu and assist with wine selection. 

Unfortunately the weather changed during Saturday, the day of our much anticipated excursion to Perouges, which is a small hill top village outside Lyon.  Perouges is a picturesque walled town that has been featured in a number of movies, most famously The Three Musketeers.  Julia had been out there and loved it.  We decided to proceed with our excursion in spite of the weather, which actually held up until mid-afternoon.  We purchased picnic supplies at the Croix Rousse market and then took a regional train for 30 minutes to a nearby town.  From there it was another 30 minutes on foot to Perouges. 

 

A lovely stroll to Perouges

This colourful fowl dashed in front of us

 

We’re glad that we made the effort because the town is incredibly well preserved and had beautiful stone buildings and cobble stoned streets.



I wanted to meet this cat

But not this one

It was also a popular place for weddings with not very well dressed couples.  Two couples were wearing almost exactly the same outfits.  Each of the women wore wedding dressed that could only be described as meringues and the men wore those detestable grey shiny suits.

"No honey I don't know where the toilet rolls have gone"

We couldn’t have our picnic on the little garden in the centre of town because it had been commandeered by a bikie gang so we chose an undercover bench that was alongside a view point from which you looked out across the surrounding fields. We happily spread out our cheese, saucisson and grapes and sat there for quite a while.  We didn’t actually drink any of the wine that poor Fiona had had to carry because we all felt that we’d drunk plenty the night before.

After lunch, and a little more wandering around town, we did a little randonee in the countryside surrounding the town to get some more views of it from the outside.  It started to rain towards the end of the walk but we made it back to the train station without getting too wet. 

It doesn't get much more French than this

 

We had time to have a coffee at a little café before catching the train, and we were able to check on the Australian election results.  The results weren’t quite as bad as we had anticipated.  Very happy about Adam Bandt holding Melbourne and Michelle Rowland holding Greenaway.  Michelle is married to a Sydney superannuation lawyer who many of us know and like.  Amazing that she held the 3^rd most marginal seat in the country.  I suppose it helps that the Liberals ran an incompetent candidate against her.  That’s all for the political rant – except - because I can’t resist:

·        I see that poor Kevin Eckendahl seems destined never to win Melbourne Ports;

·        Kelly O’Dwyer has not been given a ministry despite being one of the more talented Liberal Party MPs; and

·        Finally - three huge cheers for Sophie Mirabella for being so unlikeable that she lost a safe seat when there was a nationwide swing of 4% to her party.

On Sunday we finally visited the Museum of the History of Resistance and Deportation.  This museum gets rave reviews and it didn’t disappoint.  We spent nearly 3 hours there and probably only saw two thirds of what we could have seen.  There were many interesting stories about the resistance and how it was organised and coordinated with De Gaulle’s government in exile and the Allied Governments.  There were lots of video interviews with members of the resistance.  The museum is housed in the former French military health school that was Klaus Barbie’s headquarters in Lyon.  Klaus Barbie was tried in Lyon in 1987 and we spent the last 45 minutes of our visit watching excerpts from his trial.  It was harrowing because it was almost all footage of testimony by people who had been tortured by him, had seen him torturing others or – in the case of the lady who had run an orphanage in Lyon – was unable to stop Barbie from sending 44 Jewish orphans to concentration camps.

During our final week in Lyon we visited the two Roman amphitheatres (one small and one large) located on the Forviere hill behind Vieux Lyon.  We hadn’t seen them when we’d initially gone up to Forviere but Fiona had said that they were worth visiting. 

Fiona has also been to the little zoo in Parc Tete d’Or, which she highly recommended.  Fortunately there was a school excursion to the zoo during the week so we made sure that we went.  The zoo was very charming and typical of Lyon.  It’s in the middle of a beautiful park and is free.  There aren’t lots of animals but the setting is so nice and the animals are by and large housed in wonderful enclosures.  The only downside was that we didn’t get to see the baby giraffe that Fiona had seen frolicking about with its mother.

 

 

 

Mirabella lost, pass it on

This poor sand cat seems to spend its day in vain stalking the ermines behind the glass wall

The Lemur's hands look very human (in a black glove of course)

I'd be tired too if I had to hold up ears like that

 

On Wednesday night we had 3 of our favourite fellow students over for dinner.  I have already mentioned Linda from Switzerland who spent exactly the same 4 weeks at the school as we did.  We also invited Eva from Germany, who was at the school for 3 of the 4 weeks we were there, and would be spending another month there after we left, and Katherine from the UK who had arrived during our last 2 weeks.  Dale made a vegetarian lasagne because Linda is vegetarian and we bought patisseries for dessert.  We spoke French for almost all of the evening.  We only lapsed into English towards the end when Linda and Eva allowed us to do so – they are both fluent in English of course.  Everyone bought wine and we were all a little ‘dusty’ in class the next day.  Thank god we didn’t let Linda talk us into kicking on to karaoke at a nearby bar.

Dale, Linda, Eva, David and Katherine (l to r)

Near the school we found a great patisserie for lunch and the occasional dessert

 

On Thursday we road bikes up to L’Ile Barbe which is in the Saone upstream from the Presqu’ile.  One of our teachers (Camille) recommended that we ‘have a look’.  She said that this was where she would love to live – she then pretended to burst into tears about having to move back in with her parents, and dramatically exclaimed how embarrassed she was about doing this in her 30s.  Camille was quite theatrical and very entertaining.  L’ile Barbe was very pretty.

Our last day in Lyon was also our 25^th anniversary and we had reserved a table at Paul Bocuse’s restaurant L’auberge du Pont de Collonges.  As it was our last day at school we received some very lovely complements from our teachers, which I think was less about our French competence and more about them enjoying having some older people to teach.  We told Camille about our anniversary and dinner plans and next thing the whole teaching and admin staff were congratulating us and wishing us well – it was very very delightful.  Glenda recommended ESL to us and specifically mentioned how nice the staff were – she was absolutely right!!

ESL had very effective teaching methods

 

Dinner didn’t disappoint even though it is far and away the most expensive meal out that we’ve ever had.  The restaurant is located by the Saone River some kilometres north of Lyon and I suspect that we may have been the only guests to make our way there and home using the public bus. 

The restaurant is a former (large) family home and the exterior has been decorated to resemble a circus tent.  If you go to http://www.bocuse.fr you can have a look at some more photos of the restaurant. 

We ate upstairs in the red room, which I liked although I won’t ever decorate my home in this way.  The service was impeccable and the two highlights for me were the cheese table and the desserts being laid out on a long table in the middle of the room.  Fortunately or unfortunately Dale did take some photos with my iphone.  I am very opposed to people taking food photos in restaurants – especially in a restaurant like this – and I initially refused to hand over my iphone – but when other people started standing up and taking photos I was powerless to stop this avalanche of poor behaviour. 

A teenie weenie wafer

Our menu selections are below:

Dale

Entrée: Dodine de canard à l’ancienne pistachée et foie gras de canard maison (Duck terrine with duck foie gras)

Main: Filet de boeuf Rossini, sauce Périgueux (Filet of beef)

Dessert: Fresh raspberries with ice cream

David

Entrée: Soupe de grenouilles cressonnière (Frog soup)
Main: Carré d’agneau «Côtes Premières» rôti à la fleur de thym (Rack of lamb with thyme)
Dessert: Baba au rhum (Rum Baba)

We managed to resist ordering the Soupe aux truffes noires (black truffle soup) V.G.E. (Valerie Giscard D’Estaing) that Paul Bocuse created in 1975 for Giscard D’Estaing while he was the French President.  It costs 82 Euro or roughly A $120!!

In addition we had an amuse bouche, fromage between main and dessert, a ‘little’ piece of chocolate cake for our anniversary (I could only manage a little taste) and sweet treats (which I couldn’t even look at).  We were very very full!!  Dale started with a very heavy entrée which meant that he struggled through the cheese and dessert courses but had recovered in time to eat more of the anniversary chocolate cake than me and some of the sweet treats.  Because I had soup I had the room to hoe into cheese and dessert but then fell in a heap.

When Dale made the reservation he said that it was our 25^th anniversary but we don’t know that they quite understood.  The French word ‘anniversaire’ is used for both anniversaries and birthdays.  So we think that they thought one of us was 25 – we’re happy enough with that – and we got our piece of chocolate cake. 

We had a sensational night but we also came away thinking that while Paul Bocuse is a great chef, he is an even better marketer.  He was ever present in the restaurant although I doubt that he actually spends all that much time there anymore.  There were paintings of Paul Bocuse, statues of Paul Bocuse and ‘Paul Bocuse’ engraved and embossed into every item that could be engraved or embossed.  French friends of Julia (with whom we spent last week in Provence) commented that these days there are French chefs with 1 or 2 Michelin stars who are probably better than Paul Bocuse but there aren’t many chefs who are as good at marketing – but somehow L’auberge du Pont de Collonges maintains its 3 Michelin stars.

 Next time: Julia's Provencale Party

Lyon 1

We’ve finished our 4 weeks living in Lyon and taking a French language course at the Ecole Suisse Langue (ESL).

The Lyonnaise regard Lyon as the second biggest city in France, whereas the Marseillaise believe that it is the third biggest after them.  I think the truth is that greater Lyon is bigger than greater Marseille and has a population of about 1.5 million, whereas the actual city of Lyon is smaller than Marseille.  Once, during classes Dale referred to Lyon as the second or third biggest city in France and the teacher snapped 'the second'.

In any event Lyon is a largish city with loads of amenity.  You could say that it has everything that Paris has but on a smaller and less spectacular scale.  I think that it would probably be a very liveable city – and that certainly was our experience.

We rented a fabulous little apartment in an inner suburb that had a Fitzroy or Collingwood like vibe to it (Ed – or maybe Footscray).  It was on the 4^th floor of a 19^th century apartment building with a small courtyard.  Thankfully it had a lift for transporting all our luggage at the beginning and end of our stay. It had one bedroom, a small lounge and dining area, a kitchen, a tiny bathroom and a separate toilet. 

Home for 4 weeks

 

The only downside was that it looked onto a busy and noisy street below that hummed day and night.  There was a little takeaway pizzeria that seemed to open at about 10pm and operate until 4 am.  The pizza delivery people had annoying little motor bikes that whizzed up the street all night. 

Looking down to our street below

 

When we first arrived it was very hot and we wanted to sleep with the windows open but found this was impossible.  Fortunately our landlords, Patrick and Lolita, had invested in a little evaporative cooling fan that just managed to keep the apartment cool with all the windows closed.  Of course there was no air condition.  I imagine that it’s not really worthwhile investing in air conditioning given the few months of the year during which the city gets really hot.

After settling into our apartment over the weekend we headed off to our language classes at the ESL on Monday morning.  ESL was based in an old building on the Presqu’ile on the right hand bank of the Rhone.  It only had 6 classrooms (all based on one floor) but 3 of the class rooms had good views over the Rhone. 

View of the Rhone from the classroom

 

We enjoyed our 4 weeks at the school and feel that our French has continued to improve.  The teachers were all very nice and almost all were very very good at their job.  As we were there towards the end of summer, there were a lot of young students spending a part of their summer holidays trying to polish up their French. Some of them were not really all that interested in being there and were either absent half the time, mildly disruptive in class (on their ithingy) or disinterested. We enjoyed out last week the most because we were in a class with 6 women who were in their 20s and were all at the school because they had chosen to be there. Along the way we also met some delightful young people like Linda, from Switzerland, who spent the same 4 weeks at the school as we did.  Linda also spent 3 months in Brisbane earlier this year improving her English.  Fortunately for her she does not have a Queensland accent. I don’t really mean this – just stirring the family.  We also became friends with two young Austrian men (Adalbert and Amos), with whom we had many interesting discussions about politics.  Austria is also facing a general election on 29 September.

The school went to quite a bit of effort to organise activities each week and during the first week we visited the Musee Gadagne, which is the Lyon city museum, and went out for a wine tasting evening.  We got on very well with Pascal, who was one of the teachers, but unfortunately he left after 2 weeks because he was just helping out during the school's busy period.

 

David, Pascal and the other students

 

Julia was also in Lyon for the first week that we were there and we caught up a few times.  On one occasion I decided that I would cook chicken tarragon because Julia has cooked beautiful chicken tarragon for us a number of times including when we were in France 4 years ago.  Unfortunately it was Sunday and almost everything was closed, but by chance we discovered that the halal butchers were open, and so we gratefully bought chicken thighs and legs even though they were unboned.  So I had to de-bone a chicken for the first time.  Thank god for the world wide inter-web and YouTube, where I found an American dude with a video on de-boning chicken thighs and legs. It wasn't a complete failure because I ended up with more than enough for the meal, but the kitchen bench did resemble a killing field.  I blame the blunt knife! 

On the Friday night we had a special night out together.  We started with a couple of drinks at a peniche (which is a type of barge) moored alongside the Rhone. 

 

 

The peniche floating on the Rhone behind Julia and David

 

We followed that up with dinner at a Bouchon.  The Bouchon is a type of Lyonnaise restaurant that serves predominately meat based dishes.  The food is quite fatty and there is a lot of offal on offer.  I decided to try brains for the first time in many years.  They weren’t bad, crumbed and smothered in garlic (Ed – they were foul).

Over the weekend we also visited Les Halles Paul Bocuse, which is a covered food market set up by Paul Bocuse to sell the best produce of the region. It featured this year in Gabriel Gate's Taste le Tour when a stage of the Tour finished in Lyon.

To market to market



I never met a terrine I didn't like

 

Paul Bocuse is the French chef who the New York Times decided was the best chef of the 20^th century and he comes from Lyon.  We went to his 3 Michelin star restaurant on our last night in Lyon to celebrate our 25^th anniversary – but more of that later.  The cheese, terrines and pates were a sight to behold although we decided that we preferred the open air market at Croix Rousse that was open on Tuesdays and Saturdays. It was much cheaper and had a much wider array of fruit and vegetables.

 

We also discovered a little restaurant called Croc n Roll (not exactly a French name) that served the most extraordinary range of grilled sandwiches derived from the croque monsieur.  It wasn't  exactly Michelin star standard but the sandwiches were really yummy and filling.

Lyon is situated at the confluence of the Rhone and Saone rivers.  The Lyon city museum claims that Pittsburg is the only other city in the world to be located at the confluence of two rivers.  I found both rivers quite spectacular and the Rhone is particularly wide and blue (turquoise?) at this point, I assume because it is so close to the Alps.  The central part of the city is located on the peninsula between the two rivers.  This is called the Presqu’ile, which is one of my favourite French words because it means ‘nearly an island’ and perfectly describes a peninsula for me.   



The Presqu'ile and the Soane River from Croix Rousse

The Rhone River



Vieux (Old) Lyon is located across the Saone river and is a UNESCO World Heritage site because it has very well preserved 15^th to 17^th century buildings constructed in the Italian renaissance style and also because it is the site of the Roman city of Lugdunum.  There is an amazingly gaudy 19^th century cathedral located at the top of the hill that dominates the Lyon landscape.  We went up Forviere hill on our first full weekend in Lyon to enjoy the views

Forviere Hill (from behind), upstream of the Soane



Oh those endless steps

 

Forviere above Lyon

Basilica of Notre-Dame Forviere

The black barrel shape of the Lyon Opera building stands out on the landscape of the Presqu'il. Our apartment was just off to the left.

Cathedral St Jean-Baptiste in Vieux Lyon

Lovely park on the hill up to Forviere

Cathedral St Jean-Baptiste in Vieux Lyon

 

The other hill is called Croix Rousse and our apartment was on the slopes leading up to it.  Croix Rousse is also a UNESCO World Heritage site because the Lyon silk industry was largely based here and there are many passages (called traboules) which run between and underneath buildings.  They were used to transport silk in bad weather and also to avoid having morning slops thrown out of windows on to the silk.  We went on a school excursion to see the traboules, which wasn't very successful because the building residents weren't letting us in.  Julia went on a guided excursion, but didn’t think they were all that exciting, so we gave up hunting for traboules.  The traboules were also used extensively by the French Resistance during the 2^nd world war, which was headquartered in Lyon until it was moved to Paris late in the war.

Inside a building with a traboule





Class trip up to Croix Rousse

 

We also went across the Rhone river to see Parc Tete d’Or , which is about the size of Melbourne’s botanical gardens, has a big lake in the middle and also has a good running track. It was one of the first public gardens set up in France and was opened at the same time as Central Park in New York.

 

Pretty Parc Tete D'or

 

During the second week, our classes were held in the afternoon which had the potential to be a shock to the system but we actually enjoyed sleeping in a bit and we made good use of our free mornings.  We did an excursion to the Musee Beaux Arts with the school and visited the Museum of fabrics and decorative arts by ourselves.  The Musee Beaux Arts is small in comparison to museums in London, Paris and New York but still has an impressive collection that is well presented.  We particularly liked the sculptures and antiquities that were on display.

On the Thursday night we played Laser Tag, which was organised by the school.  It was a lot of fun but very hot and I think I spent the last 5 minutes too exhausted to shoot anyone or avoid being shot. 

We were divided into 3 teams, and Marion the teacher (bottom left) went solo.  Little did we realise that Marion was like Lara Croft, and she scored 3 times more points than the next highest player

 

After laser tag we met up with some of our school friends who were leaving after 2 weeks.  The impact of coming out of the boiling hot laser tag, racing home to have showers and then riding bikes down to the restaurant for dinner, resulted in Dale getting a pretty bad cold that he has only just got over.

 

Dinner afterwards with Josephine, Linda, Amos, Lukas Adalbert and David

 

Lyon has the same city bike hire system as Melbourne except that there are sooooooooo many more bikes and bike stations (345 stations!).  Come on Melbourne – this is how you make a bike hire system work.  Having said that I did have some gripes about Lyon’s system.  Firstly it is quite old because it was one the first that was established.  This means that you need to spend an inordinate amount logging in at bike stations to hire bikes and successfully re-docking the bikes was a nightmare.  We also discovered that it was very difficult to find a spare docking station anywhere near the centre of the city after 6pm. 

Next Time: More of Lyon