Yesterday had seemed like a long day. From 08:30 until almost midnight it’d been non-stop, and once again the pillow had made it difficult to get comfortable for sleep. Carmen had felt full of energy after yesterday’s dance competition and had decided we’d do a 5K this morning. After getting ready to run, I found my right leg was tired and aching from all the hills yesterday. I figured as we’d be going at a slowish pace, and wouldn’t be going that far, maybe it’d help it, so headed out without mentioning the ache to Carmen.
Carmen had seen a route on Strava that she liked the look of, and was actually going to be closer to four miles. We headed along Avenue Berthelot and then took side streets until we reached a railway bridge, and then rejoined the main avenue. Eventually we reached the river Rhône and ran along that for a short distance before heading back. The run had actually helped ease my leg, and was back to normal by the halfway point.
We could have gone back to Le Pain du 8eme, but as there was a second cafe in the area, I thought it might be nice to give that one a try as well. Clef Dorée doesn’t have quite the same modern look as the other, but they’re very friendly and I think they actually had a better selection of breakfast pastries to choose from along with a box of tea. I did of course have the usual Earl Grey, along with a pastry called ‘trosade chocolate’ - it’s a twisted pastry with bits of chocolate inside.
I’d pre-booked us roof access for the Basilica of Notre Dame of Fourvière, as I’d expected this to sell out. There were two options for me to choose from, 11:00, or 14:30. I didn’t want it to feel like Carmen needed to rush, so went for the latter option, with the idea that we could spend the morning and lunchtime around the old part of Lyon. We left out around 11:00, and took the T4 tram to the LEGO store in the Westfield shopping centre not far from the train station. One unusual thing we noticed about the shopping centre was that the toilets there charge for you to use them. It seems quite common in Lyon for this to be the case, but we did know of free ones by the Vieux Lyon station.
I took Carmen to Place Saint-Jean, and she decided she wanted to see inside the cathedral. Once she’s seen the astronomical clock we sat down there for a while before walking through the old town, with me as her tour guide. We took a break from this to have a Nutella bubble waffle from Yaoz, which was €5 each. The batter seemed lighter than the ones we’d had in Guernsey so I was able to finish mine a little easier.
We didn’t have much time left after that, so we soon headed back to the station, and took the F1 funicular up to Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière. The name is one that makes you think of the Notre-Dame of Paris, but the name simply means ‘The Basilica of Our Lady of Fourvière’. Although Fourvière itself is actually a corruption of the French words for ‘old forum’ - in reference to the Roman ruins also on this hill.
We got there five minutes before our booking so headed over to the entrance for the tour at the bottom of one of the bell towers. The guide only spoke French, so it was difficult at times, but I did understand enough words to get the gist of what was being said, even if I was missing out on some of the details.
The basilica was designed by Pierre Bossa, inspired by Roman and Byzantine architecture, and built between 1872 and 1896 - relatively recent for a church as impressive as this one. The bell towers represent the four cardinal virtues: force, justice, prudence, and temperance.The guide also explained the existence of the connected Chapel of Saint Thomas, and seemed to suggest that part of the building was Protestant though I didn’t understand enough of the other words around the explanation.
With the initial explanation complete, he led is up the stairs of the bell tower as far as a door that took us into a gallery overlooking the nave of the upper church. I thought the amount of detail and colour in sculptures on the wall was very impressive.
He pointed out a few details here, and then led us into a room in the ‘force’ tower, below the cupola. This had some photographs of the construction of the church, and the people involved. It seemed so very strange to see a building like this under construction in photographs.
The tour continued back in the ‘justice’ tower, going up some more of the stairs so we could then look out in front of the church. It was a little cooler now as we could see dark clouds approaching from the south. We hoped it wouldn’t rain before we’d finished on the roof. Back inside we went up yet more of the stairs so we could then see the roof space above the domes of the church ceiling, and the angled roof above. He was trying to tell us about the sculptures on display there, but all I could understand was that these ones were cast from plaster rather than carved in stone to reduce their weight. One of them was a cows head with wings - very strange.
The final stretch of stairs took us out onto the roof, but rather than walk across it just yet, he took us into the room with the bells and started to talk about them. At 15:00 each of the bells rung once - they were loud, but maybe not quite as loud as you’d expect. The clappers had been removed from all of them so they could be rung simultaneously via an electronic clapper.
The walk along the roof of the church gave us not just great views of Lyon, but also of the Metallic Tower of Fourvière. Although it resembles the Eiffel Tower in Paris, it’s actually a few years older than it. It’s the highest point in Lyon, but is not accessible to the public as it’s now used as a TV tower.
Already on the roof, and having been in the ‘justice’ bell room, you’d have thought our ascending would be over, but no, in the ‘prudence’ tower there is a winding metal staircase that took us to the highest point. From there we were done, and headed all the way back to the ground floor within that tower to exit and end the tour.
We walk round to the other side of the basilica to look inside the chapel, but found it quite plain in comparison, so went into the basilica itself and sat there before deciding we should move on to Lugdunum - the site of the Roman ruins just a few minutes walk away.
At the entrance it seemed to suggest it’d be about €4 each for entry to the ruins, which seemed pretty good, but it turned out to only cost us €2.50 each. It wasn’t until we’d finished in the museum that I realised that what we’d paid for entry to was the museum only, and the ruins are free to access. We’re just not used to large historical sites being free.
The museum starts on the top floor and has several floors of artefacts that have been recovered from dig sites in the area. There are many stone blocks from buildings, with text carved into them, and things as small as Roman coins. On one floor they’d got amusing face-in-the-hole boards to put yourself into Roman scenes, and LEGO representations of what the area might have looked like during Roman times.
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It seemed like a good idea to get on the F2 funicular as it should have been close-by, so we put this into Google Maps, despite the poor signal here, and started heading further and further up the hill. This took us past a very small segment of the Geir Aqueduct that I was hoping to see in more detail tomorrow, and into the Saint-Just quarter. It seemed a lot further to the funicular station than I’d expected based on what I’d read online. I realised then that there was a second stop at the bottom of the ruins that would have been much easier to reach.
Before boarding the funicular, we stopped by the Carrefour over the road to get some lunch for tomorrow. Once back in Vieux Lyon we then went looking for somewhere to get an evening meal. We looked at a few menus and in each case, the bouchons had main meals of €20-40, but offered three course meals for similar. Of the places we looked at, Le Gourmand de Saint Jean wasn’t quite the cheapest, but it seemed the best option as a balance between choice and price at just €24 per person.
A set menu in a bouchon is a brilliant way of sampling multiple Lyonnaise dishes in one go. For the starter I had Saucisson Brioché Lyonnais, which is a sausage baked inside a loaf of brioché. It was a slice of this with a red wine sauce, and salad which I think was dressed with Dijon mustard - a fairly local creation. The main was Cassette de ravioles sauce Saint-Marcellin served with more dressed salad. This is essentially small pieces of ravioli in Saint-Marcellin sauce, which is a creamy cheese that has a slight nutty and lemony taste. To finish, I had Gateau chocolat caramel beurre salé with some thick cream.
Although we both had the same main, Carmen tried Terrine de Campagne Artisanale for starter, and a Tiramisu praline for dessert. Whilst the terrine isn’t that different to a meatloaf, the tiramisu was very different to ones I’d seen before. This one was pink due to it being coated in crushed almonds coated in pink sugar - a Lyonnaise specialty.
Once we’d eaten we walked around Vieux Lyon a little more before heading back to the metro to take that as far as Place Bellecour. This was Carmen’s chance to see the deckchair-like walkways we’d seen from the roof of the basilica. Whilst in the area we spotted a fountain nearby, so walked to Place des Jacobins to photograph that. We then spotted the Célestins theatre, so photographed that as well.
Back on the metro, we only took this as far as Guillotière as Google suggested there was an archway around there that looked similar to the Arch de Triumph in Paris. It seemed worthwhile stopping for, so we headed out of the station there. Considering how nice the parts of Lyon we’d seen so far had been, this area surprised us.
It was busy, noisy, and seemed rundown with litter. What we didn’t know was that this part of the town frequently features in the media as not just having issues with litter and security, but violence too. It perhaps wasn’t the best place to go hunting for something we didn’t know the location of. It seemed like people would swarm around you as you leave the station, but we kept on moving, and didn’t stop. Since our visit, the location of that arch has been removed from Google, so probably never actually existed there - I imagine it was added in error.
We walked along Rue de Marseille until we reached the T2 tram stop, and took that all the way back to the AirBNB. We had to stand outside waiting for a while as Roswitha had the washing machine on and hadn’t heard the door bell. We got in just before 10:00, and I went straight to bed.