October 25, 26, 2024 - Lyon, France
This morning the included tour with Viking involved sitting on the bus and doing a panoramic tour of Lyon for 4 hours. Whenever I hear ‘panoramic’ tour I say ‘NO’! We learned that panoramic tour means a lot of sitting and not a lot of walking or exercise, so what should I do instead today in Lyon?
Richard was down for the count. He had fever and chills and the best thing for him to do to get better quickly is to sleep. I got Richard a hot honey and lemon tea and had him drink some cold medication that we had picked up for him the day before in Tournon, and I went to breakfast alone.
As I was leaving breakfast I bumped into our Aussie friend Stacy who was also by herself as her husband was still sleeping and would be for awhile. Stacy didn’t really want to go on the panoramic tour either so she asked if she could go with me on whatever tour I was doing on my own.
Stacy walking along the banks of the Rhone
We agreed to meet in about 15 minutes and we set off for Old Lyon. I had grabbed a map from Guest Services before we left the Viking Buri, but Lyon really is pretty easy to navigate since there are 2 rivers to deal with in Lyon. We were docked on the right bank of the Rhone river and we needed to get to the left bank of the Soane river to get to Old Lyon. The streets run parallel to each other in Lyon, so we just had to head towards the Soane and we would easily find Old Lyon.
We could have also walked to the metro station and taken a subway over to Old Lyon but we both agreed it was a nice day, so why not walk? And the best part about leaving early on a Friday morning was there was hardly anyone out and about so it was easy to walk without bumping into anyone on the narrow sidewalks.
The last time we were in Lyon with Uniworld our active walking tour involved taking the metro from near our ship over to Old Lyon so that we didn’t waste a lot of time walking to Old Lyon as part of our tour. We had visited a silk weaver’s shop the last time and had a demonstration of silk weaving on an old fashioned loom and I had purchased a beautiful silk scarf at the same time. Since there is no need to dress up anymore for work, there was no need to be looking for a silk scarf today.
Its funny how when you visit a city once certain sights leave an impression on you that you never forget. For me one of those sights was this patisserie in Old Lyon. I distinctly remember our guide showing us the pastries in this one patisserie’s window which had pink pralines all over the pastries. She continued walking us to the silk weavers and I turned around and went back inside the patisserie to buy one of these delightful pastries to share with Richard.
Allumnette! This was the pastry that I wanted!
Stacy and I split an Allumette and saved the second one for her husband Steve
Pink pralines used in most of the Lyonnaise pastries are candied almonds cooked in pink caramel iced sugar and they are a specialty of the region. No one really knows why the pralines in Lyon are pink, but there is talk that in the 18th century a Lyonnaise pastry chef was apparently inspired by the rose gardens in the Rhone region and tinted his pralines in a similar pink in his copper mixing machine. The pink pralines proved to be a hit with customers and the rose coloured praline tart was born.
As Stacy and I walked in Old Lyon I immediately recognized ‘Boulangerie du Palais’ as the patisserie shop that I had visited before when we were in Lyon the last time. The patisserie had a lineup out the door for people wanting to buy their amazing pastries, so we had to go in and get our fill of these delightful, mouth watering pastries!
Lyon is known for its silk weaving but to facilitate moving the raw material quickly from the Soane River to the silk weaver’s rather than have to go through many streets to get to the weaver’s workshop, ‘traboules’ or a network of passageways or shortcuts were created. The traboules allowed workers and craftspeople to transport clothes and other textiles more quickly through the city while remaining sheltered from miserable weather and reduced the amount of time to get from point A to point B.
During WW2 Lyon was a major centre for the French Resistance and the traboules were used by the Resistance for secret meetings, thus preventing the Nazis from occupying the whole of Lyon.
Traboules in Lyon, France
Stacy walking through a Traboule in Lyon
There were a lot of these types of spiral staircases on the sides of buildings in Old Lyon
Maison du crinkle or the Pink Tower of Lyon. This elegant building dates from the fifteenth and eighteenth century in Lyon.
Stacy and I were walking through Old Lyon when we happened upon a Viking group which would have gotten off their panoramic tour for a brief stop in Old Lyon. We decided to see where they were going and of course they went down a narrow passageway to see a traboule.
We wandered around a bit more in Old Lyon looking in some souvenir shops and taking in the sights on a Friday morning as the City started to wake up and the streets got a lot busier. We wandered into the Cathedral Saint-Jean Baptiste de Lyon to take a look at their beautiful stained glass windows.
Stained glass windows in the Cathedral in Lyon
The most beatuiful rose window in the Cathedral in Lyon
These windows were damaged by the Nazis and replaced after WW2. You can see they look much different than the beautiful original stained glass windows
Begun in 1180 on the ruins of a 6th century church the Cathedral in Lyon was completed in 1476. The inside of the cathedral is Romanesque and the nave and facade are Gothic. The stained glass windows inside the cathedral were stunning and I learned after that the colour of the stained glass was appropriate to the position of the sun in the sky to allow for cooler colours when the sun is strong in the sky and warmer colours when the sun is absent. We could see that some of the stained glass looked out of place from the other windows and I learned that the Nazis had destroyed some of the stained glass windows during their occupation and these have since been replaced by more modern looking stained glass.
Viking Buri docked along side another Viking ship
We decided to walk back to the ship for lunch and see if Richard and Stacy’s husband Steve were in the land of the living. We had done 12,500 steps already and we were just approaching 1pm!
After lunch we decided to head over to a shopping mall that I had seen was about a 30 minute walk away. We wanted to visit another Monoprix store in the mall, so we started walking with Steve now joining me and Stacy.
Steve and Stacy from Perth, Australia
We had a pleasant walk through Lyon and managed to find our way back to the ship after doing a record setting day of walking at 25,000 steps! My feet were killing me so thank goodness I had bought some relaxing, reinvigorating foot creme when we were in Nice!
Richard was feeling a bit better and was able to join us for dinner and we met some other Canadians on the ship who hail from Regina, so they joined Steve and Stacy and me and Richard for dinner so we could get to know them!
A huge day of walking on Day 1 in Lyon was followed by a relaxing Day 2 in Lyon with Richard sleeping most of the morning on Day 2 and I wrote yesterday’s blog.
We met up with Steve and Stacy who said that Vange and Rob were at a nice restaurant having lunch in Lyon and did we went to join them?
We hadn’t eaten off the Buri since we embarked so we thought that since Lyon was the gastronomic centre of France, lunch would be a good opportunity for us to try a nice restaurant off the ship.
Le Comptoir d’Ainay was where we joined Vange and Rob for lunch
Lyonaise salad with egg, lardons and croutons
Eggplant parmigiana
We easily walked to the restaurant over the bridge of the Rhone and joined Vange and Rob for lunch. Richard had a Salad Lyonaise and I had the Eggplant Parmigiana. What a delicious lunch! I’ve never eaten such a delightful eggplant Parm and so unusual too!
The girls! Stacy, Vange and me
A lovely shopping street in Lyon
We decided to walk around the pedestrian shopping streets after lunch and meandered awhile before we headed back to the ship. We didn’t want to push Richard too hard with too much walking, given he is still trying to get over his cold.
We attended the farewell cocktail party before dinner and all of the crew came and toasted us in the lounge and thanked us for travelling on Viking. We’ve never had such a nice farewell send off by the crew before, so their thank you’s were very heartfelt!
We joined the Aussies and the Canadians for dinner at a table for 8 which Richard had to elbow some other guy who said “That’s our table” as Richard commandeered the table while we were still up in the lounge at cocktails. It never ceases to amaze us how certain people have this huge sense of entitlement just because they have sat at a table once or twice before that they think its “THEIR” table. Anyway, Richard said “I’m ahead of you in line buddy, so I’m going to get that table”! Yeesh….its like high school sometimes dealing with entitled punks!
We had a rip roaring fun Commonwealth table of Aussies and Canadians at dinner and since everyone is continuing on to the next cruise on the Viking HILN on the Rhine for the next 8 days, we are sure to have many more fantastic fun dinners with our new Aussie and Canadian friends.
It sure is nice to meet like-minded people to share in our travel adventures and who are also willing to put the steps in to see a town the way we like to do it…on foot! You really learn a city when you walk it and for me it imprints on my brain and I can remember what we did the last time we there and what we saw and where we went. What I don’t remember from last time was going in the Cathedral or seeing the Traboules so I learned something this time in Lyon and that is the reason why we travel!
We are looking forward to the Rhine River portion of our cruise as we know from last December’s Christmas market cruise Germany is a lot different from France. I am also looking forward to visiting Basel as I’ve never been to Switzerland before (Viking’s head office) so Switzerland will be one other country to Check off MY Bucket list!
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