Our trip to Lyon was both memorable and restorative! The shining sun, the leisurely pace and a whole weekend with my honey and no distractions were invaluable. We nearly had the city to ourselves sauf pour Saturday night - when we had a little trouble finding a table in the foremost gourmand city in France. Rumor has that it that Lyon has some rivalry from the Italian city of Turin, but that has yet to be proven. We had good food - though nothing that we said was better than we had had anywhere else.
We arrived by train, after leaving Paris around noon and arrived in Lyon at 2. No parking necessary, a little lost getting out of the train station, but then we were on the streets of Lyon. We stopped to buy a mouget - the traditional bouquet of the first of May - a small bouquet of lilies of the valley. Then rolled our little suitcases in the direction of our hotel. The walk was not long, and the sunshine felt good. We happened upon the tourist office, and got a map, a really pleasant welcome and a plan for the rest of the weekend. Our hotel - located just off of the Place de Bellecouer was a lovely refurbished old apartment building, cut up into small hotel rooms.
The town of Lyon is most famous for its sausage (served with lentils) and for these narrow passageways that wind between the buildings and are entered by a normal looking front door. This allowed the French Resistance to hide in plain sight from the Nazis and the Vichy government during the second World War.
