The hangover from WA3 - Lyon is our last stop in France for this stint before we fly over the Prague on Sunday (tomorrow)...
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| The view from Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourviere on the hill |
Great for tucker and shopping, Lyon is like a mini Paris. A population of 500,000 the city feels so much bigger than how many people live here. It's the second richest city in France which makes sense as there is so much construction etc. going on. There is a lot of new buildings and shopping centres established or getting built, and the metro system is so new and clean.
Our accommodation is a small self contained studio slightly outside of Lyon city. Since London, it is the first accommodation we've relied on public transport significantly to get into the city or see some of the notable sights. The metro costs us 1.60euro vs the bus 2euro. The bus network is massive, and we used this to start with but as the stay goes on we're using the metro due to it been a little more cost effective and heaps more efficient!
We arrived on a hot (35 degree C) Wednesday afternoon and decided to walk to our apartment - to Amy's disgust - about 2km away from the bus station we arrived at from Annecy. Got to the local supermarket (monoprix) and back home to cook some burritos, a beer and an early night.
Thursday morning we went on a walking tour go get familiar with the history and way of the town as well as getting some facts etc.
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| Cathedral of Saint John - start point of our walking tour |
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| Cathedral of Saint John's astronomical clock. |
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| Bit of security floating around |
The walking tour took us around the 'old town' which unlike Paris and other french towns, still stands as it would have 5-600 years ago. Lyon is famous for its Traboules, Cours and Facades.
A Traboules is a narrow passageway that connects two streets by crossing a block of houses. These passageways pass through private dwellings and apparently they were built to allow for quick and direct access from street to street.
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Interestingly all the staircases constructed in this area don't have windows - this is because it helps ventilation through the buildings where are built so close to each other.
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| One of the signs outside a Traboules and Cour |
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The entrance to a Traboules - each little block typically has one of these passageways.
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| The Lyon traditional feted brioche (pictured on the bottom) a pastry with sugar coated nuts - had one, was delicious. |
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| Restaurant Cour Des Loges with a Michelin Star :0 |
A wealthy courtyard noted for its unique architecture for the time - roughly 1600's. After completing this project the architect went on to work for kings and notable people because of what he achieved in between these two buildings.
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| A private well - only the wealthy had wells as everyone else at the time had to fetch their water from the river |
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| Another flash staircase in a courtyard |
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| A mural including Lyon's most notable people - I didn't know any of them. |
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