This morning we started at a very easy pace. Having a kitchen in the room where we can make our own coffee (yes we have a way to make coffee here and it is wonderful!!!) means we tend to relax and take a slower pace at our start for the day. We even had time to think and plan our day’s activities today with a map in hand.
Ok, today we are going to explore the older section of Lyon, find the wall murals (called frescos), locate the Bartholdi Fountain and consider a river cruise. But first we will have to walk over to the Tourist Information center to get some directions on these plans. Our map has some of the information but the old section of the town has narrow streets/lanes and difficult twists and turns.
We have a wonderful walk back to the tourist information and we walked by the metal bouquet of colourful flowers again. I put a picture in the blog yesterday (the day I took the picture) and again marvel at the brilliant colors and just the ‘cheerful feeling’ this huge bouquet gives off just seeing it with a blue sky behind.
We arrived at the Tourist Information center with no difficulty and walked in to chat with a friendly volunteer. She had so many ideas and kept pointing out things that we could do and asked us about what we have done. We feel we need another few days here to accomplish all the suggestions. We did hear about some of the ‘lanes’ and sights to look for in the old section of town and heard about the zoo and botanical gardens as well as the Silk Museum. We decided to work our way though as much as we could manage without wearing ourselves out.
One of the interesting things was to hear her talk about how we could talk a bus up the hill to where the Silk Museum and the zoo and we both looked at the hill she was talking about it would be no more of a climb than going from Riverside Park to the level of our house. I guess everything is so flat here that the two hills in town really do seem a challenge to the locals. At any rate, we headed over the Soane River to exlore the section of the city that dates back to about 1200. We have a map with some tourist sights to see and a map that we are comfortable following.
We enjoyed the trekking around but to be honest each time we found a ‘sight’ it really was nothing for us to see. The lady at the tourist information center did say that it was better to be on a walking tour so we would get the stories. Honestly we came to several ‘addresses’ to look at an old door and no explanation. After about an hour of wandering around we headed off to find the fresco’s she had mentioned. We know they could not be difficult to see, and they were not. The first one was one entire wall painted with 3 D strategies that gave an incredible impression. Then we crossed the bridge and found the fresco that was listed as ‘recommended’ by the Lonely Planet. This one was the entire side of the building with paintings to look like windows and balconies equal in ‘real size’. The multiple story building then had that many rows of painted windows, some with ‘painted on balconies’ and famous people standing on the balconies. The quality of 3D painting effect stops those walking by to look a second time thinking the balconies, windows and characters are real. I found that I had to really study a couple of balconies with people on to be sure it really was painted on the wall and not actual dummies in dress on a real balcony. It was all painted.
While we were looking over this wall there was a group of young people who had written out ‘speaking bubbles’ cartoon style on paper and put these on the lowest wall giving the characters a cartoon look with comments. We were not able to read all the comments but it was a great and creative (and non destructive) way to enjoy the painted characters on the street level. We enjoyed watching them playing with the comments and taking pictures of each other interacting with the characters.
We started back towards the river on a path to find the Barthodi Fountain in the Place des Terreaux. The fountain depicts France as a female seated on a chariot controlling the four great rivers of France, represented by wildly rearing and plunging horses, highly individualized but symmetrically arranged, with bridles and reins of water weeds. Frédéric Bartholdi, then aged 23, designed this fountain for Lyon but it was not until after he had completed he designed of the Statue of Liberty in New York in 1886 this fountain was built.
By now it is getting close to the time for us to find the ticket office to pick buy a ticket on the Soane River cruise. This is only a one hour tour that takes us up river on the Saone River to the Barbe Island where we return. Since the city basically developed along the river historically this was a really good way to explore the economically development of Lyon and surrounding areas. The commentary was both in French and English. There is evidence of the older and newer structures mingled in a complementary manner. There are no castles to protect the city or evidence of a city wall, but there are structures in evidence of battlements for the purpose of watching the river traffic and protection.
Along the river banks we saw long low river boats docked that originally were used to transport cargo up and down the river but now have been retired and remodelled into houseboats. Today the cargo boats are much larger.
While we were on the boat we heard English being spoken behind us so we turned around and introduced ourselves. Thus we met Susan (California) and Yann (French from Paris). We found that we enjoyed chatting with each other and after we finished the cruise we stood on the promenade talking even more. It seemed appropriate that we all retire to a coffee/bar on the riverbank to enjoy a drink and continue out chat. We actually finally had to say good bye when it was time for them to head back to their hotel to pick up their luggage so they could catch their train back to Paris. [I do hope I have their names correct and spelled right!]
By this time we felt it was time to head back to our hotel and prepare dinner. Each of the last two days we have walked everywhere so both of us needed to give our feet a bit of a rest and have dinner. Of course our day is not finished since we both wanted to head back down to town center to take some night pictures. So at 9:30 we headed back downtown. This is Saturday night and the city is truly alive since the temperature is around 20, the breeze is slight and the spirit of partying is easily heard. I used the tripod to get some pictures but am sure there are much better ones. We did enjoy the outing but by 11:30 when we got back we both were ready for sleep.
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