Lyon - Food, Rivers, and Churches

We arrived in Lyon to find that our apartment was on the 4th floor.  No elevator.  Fortunately, the owner, Corrinne was kind enough to help us schlep our luggage up there.  It was 77 stairs in all, so we tried to limit the number of excursions / day.  The location of the place was excellent.  Really close to most attractions, restaurants, and, importantly, a short walk to some very good bakeries.
Our first sightseeing trip was an excursion to La Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière .  On the way, we, of course, stopped for croissants and accidentally stumbled on The Lyon Cathedral, a.k.a. Cathédrale Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Lyon, which began constructions in 1180 and was finished in 1476 on the ruins of the original 6th century church.

 

 

Enjoying lunch between churches

Then up to the big Lyon attraction, La Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière an over-the-top massive and ornate church that overlooks the entire city.

Toto, I think we're not in Kansas anymore!

The view from the top is pretty impressive.

Then, a short walk down the hill leads us to the Ancient Theatre of Fourvière which was built starting in 15BC and expanded in the 2nd century AD.

On Saturday, we took it easy, and walked north from our apartment about 10 minutes to Place des Terreaux, which has the Bartholdi Fountain, the The Lyon Museum of Fine Arts and some nice cafes.

Sunday we took the city bus tour.  We got off at the Musée des Confluences which has an interesting architecture and a number of exhibits including natural history, African culture etc.

Most of the rest of our week was spent schmeing around and checking out various restaurants.    

Sand sculpture street art on Rue de la République

Alexandra went to mass a couple of times at the St. Nizier Church, a massive structure about a 3 minute walk from our apartment.

On Wednesday (5/23) there was a massive labor march on the street 1/2 block from the apartment:

And on Thursday, our trip to Geneva was screwed up by yet another train strike.  Our train to Geneva (a 2 hr ride) turned into a 6 hour ordeal involving 2 buses on windy secondary roads.  At one point the first bus was only 12km away from Geneva, but he wouldn't let anyone off, as his next stop was a town 40 km south.  That was where we transferred to the bus that finally took us to Geneva... but that bus let us off pretty far from the central station and our hotel, so a friendly fellow passenger led us to the central station, where our train would've delivered us to 4 hours earlier.

I hope they were striking for something important!

Adventures in Provence

On May 10, we went to Fou de Fafa for my birthday.  Lovely restaurant owned by Antonia and Russell, who settled here from England 14 years ago.  It's a small quiet place.  Antonia runs the dining room, and Russell runs the kitchen... so there are only 3 employees including the owner, and it appears that they limit their business to what they can handle.   That said, they do an excellent job.

On May 11, we took our landlord's (Philippe's) advice and did a tour of the Luberon.  This is the hilly area or Provence northeast of Avignon that has a number of charming hillside villages.  We spent a fair amount of time in Gordes (pronounced gord), had a lovely lunch, walked around, admired views, discovered a wonderful bakery (of course) .

Then, onward to the town of Saignon.  It's most striking feature is a huge rock that rises at the top of the hill the town is on.  Adventurous sorts with good kneew can climb up to the top for a spectacular view.

Rock of Saignon stage left

Or climb partway up... knees permitting

Alexandra on the rock's first landing

The view from the top of the rock

On Monday morning we returned the car we'd had for the past 5 days, and got on the TGV for Marseille.  We had a nice lunch downtown, then took the tourist train up to Basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde.  It was windy and cold that day, so we didn't spend much time there.  Sami, a colleague from my working days at Fairchild, lives near Marseille, and he drove down to show us around.  He insisted on driving us back to Avignon after driving us around Cassis (lovely place, out of my price range, and much of the area is owned by the government as a nature preserve).  

Sami and me on the rocks in Cassis

So, we set off to Avignon, but we were so engrossed in conversation that we missed the freeway exit and we were about 30 miles north of Avignon... almost in Montelimar (a town mentioned in Savoy Truffle, a Beatle's song on the White Album) before we realized it and turned on Google Maps to get us pointed back in the right direction.   No sooner were we heading south on the freeway when BANG!  we hit something.  Sami pulled over.  There was extensive damage to the front of the car.  He called for roadside assistance.  The highway is a toll road run by a private company that has its own crew that responded fairly quickly.   They called a tow truck that drove us, and 2 of the 4 cars that hit the stuff on the road to a garage in Mornas where a taxi picked all 3 of us up and dropped Alexandra and I at our place in Avignon, then proceeded to drive Sami back home.  We were back around midnight.  Sami didn't make it back until around 2:00 AM.  Apparently Sami's insurance paid for the cab (it was e125 just to Avignon, which was only 1/3 of the way to Aix-en-Provence, where Sami lives).  

Quite the adventure.  Fortunately, no one was injured.  4 cars were damaged by the debris left behind by the truck tire that came apart.   The gendarmes found the truck responsible for the debris, so I'm guessing that will help all of the people whose cars were damaged recover their losses.

The next few days we just spent hanging out and enjoying good food and scenery in Avignon including a walk across the bridge to nowhere (Pont Saint-Bénézet, also known as the Pont d'Avignon) which is a reconstruction of a bridge built in 12th century.

On Wed. night, our last night in Avignon, we returned to Fou de Fafa for our last dinner in town.  Then left Avignon on Thursday morning (May 17) for Lyon.   Philippe drove us to the TGV, bless his heart!

First week in France

Wow.  It's a low cost airline... but if our flight is any indication, you get what you pay for.  No in flight entertainment, no food or drink unless you pay, even for water ($3.50).  However, you do get to go through the Reykjavik airport.

Navigating the train system in Paris was fairly straightforward.   We finally arrived at our one night stand Hotel near Gare du Lyon around 2 o'clock Wednesday afternoon.   Morning in Paris require is an excellent croissant... which we managed to find with a combination of Google Search and dumb luck, Blé Sucré, about a 10-minute walk from our hotel.  

The 4 hour drive from Paris to Avignon is done in less than two and a half hours on the TGV train.  Unlike Bart,  Caltrain and Amtrak, TGV is both quiet and fast.

Philippe, our landlord in Avignon, met us at the Avignon TGV and drove us to the apartment that were staying in for a total of two weeks.  It's located inside the walled city and everything of interest is in walking distance.  

The Avignon street where our apartment is.  No big cars here! 

The main attraction here is the Popes Palace, perched high on a cliff overlooking the Rhone river.  

After walking and climbing so much, our knees and feet needed some rest, so we spent the next day in Aix-de-Provence.  Aix is pronounced like the letter "x" in English.  It's a lovely, expensive town.  Nice town for lunch.  La Table des Saisons .  

The next day was a double-whammy... train strike and national holiday (Victory in Europe day).  We rented a car and drove up to Pont-du-Gard.  An amazing feat of Roman engineering and construction.  Read facts here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pont_du_Gard.

By the time we got to Nimes for lunch, all the good places were closed.  Most restaurants open for lunch from noon to 14:00, so we ended up at a not-so-great lebanese place.  But we did get to see the the Nimes ampitheater, which is still used for soccer matches and bull fights.

Strawberries from roadside stand near Nimes

To try to make up our pathetic lunch, I booked dinner at a Le Pre Gourmand in the small town of Eyragues.   A little too fuffy for us.  The only other diners was a trio of teenagers (1 well dressed teenage girl and her two less well dressed teenage companions).  The dishes had foams and flowers.  I think I'm swearing off Michelin-starred restaurants.   The red wine was very nice (Persia Fondreche 2013) , but Alexandra, not wanting me to drink too much before driving back, finished her glass and mine...so spent some time driving the porcelain bus back at the apartment.

Our next excursion was to Caverne du Pont d'Arc, which is a cave, discovered in 1994, which contains the earliest known expression of human art.  The cave's paintings and engraving date back 36,000 years.   The cave itself is closed to tourists to preserve it, but it has been painstakingly replicated from a digitization of the original.  It took 8 years to build it.  You can marvel at the sophistication of our 36000 year prior ancestors, or marvel at the skill with which the cave was replicated in this century... or you can marvel at the fresh strawberry tart we had for dessert at lunch.

On the way back from the Caverne du Pont d'Arc, we took back roads, and stopped in the lovely little town of Pont-Saint-Espirit for ice cream (quite nice)

 and bathrooms (necessary, but unremarkable):   https://goo.gl/maps/kNLSXW5f3j32

     

And so... it begins. The great European Adventure

We've cleared out the house, settled Ivy (Kitty) in her new home (Thanks, Kevin!!) and are now currently in Reykjavik en route to Paris.  We spend only 1 night in Paris before catching a TGV (fast train) to Avignon, where we'll stay for 2 weeks at Philippe's apartment.  The map for the first half of our European stay is at:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1sIH2-ISZQn2K6CWUWS3VI8-7cdfsz0Gk&usp=sharing