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