Lyon

Day 15 continued...Monday 30 June 2014

So we left Geneva around 2pm and arrived in Lyon a couple hours later. It was a smooth ride. No issues.  We navigated our way through the Lyon train station and found a metro connection to take us to the part of the city where our apartment was located. This is the outside of the building...definitely nothing special or fancy. The apartment itself was very nice and updated! Biggest downside was no air conditioning. We didn't have air conditioning in Florence, either, but it wasn't as hot at night in Florence as it was in Lyon...so it was a little uncomfortable.  It had big windows though, which we could open, but we found out the first night that there was some sort of club downstairs, so at 3-4 in the morning we'd wake up hot, sweaty and uncomfortable, unable to go back to sleep because there was blaring music in the street.  It was either get some sleep and be hot or be slightly cooler with the window open, but unable to sleep. We chose the first option for the rest of the nights.

See, it was pretty nice.

After settling in to our apartment we went to Part-Dieu, a metro station with shopping. We shopped at one of the main French grocery stores Carrefour and picked up all the essentials for our week stay. We went back to the apartment and turned in early to relax.

The whole premise of staying for a week in Lyon was actually to just relax mid-trip. So, not getting a ton of sleep was OK at night because we napped a lot during our days there.  We actually did not do much in Lyon.  Michael was familiar with the city, and was aware of the "big" sights we needed to go visit - most of which we could see all within a couple of days. So most of our visit in Lyon was just "chilling out" and living the European life-style.

Michael was OBSESSED with this cereal. He ate it all the time on his mission. It's Quaker brand, but you CANNOT buy it in the United States. Crazy. It really was delicious. Pretty sure we ate a whole box withing a two day period of time.

Day 16: Tuesday 1 July 2014

Tuesday we slept in pretty late.  After two weeks of quick touring all of the big cities and a couple of late nights our bodies were finally catching up with us.  We pretty much lounged all day, and even took a nap in the late afternoon - we couldn't believe how tired we both were.  But, like I said, that was kind of the whole point of our week in Lyon, to relax, and relax we did! We actually ran in the morning, so we weren't completely being lazy!!

I told Michael to take this picture as proof!! 

Day 17: Wednesday 2 July 2014

Wednesday was similar to Tuesday, except it was raining so we didn't run.  We decided it'd be a good day to shop and check out the solds (sales).  We went to the mall and window shopped - as a woman who loves to shop, I actually wasn't too crazy - it's hard for me to shop when I'm not looking for something specific, but hey, our wallets came out of it happy! I think we were both still feeling pretty fatigued so we just went back to the apartment around 3pm and had a late lunch/snack.  We just chilled out, I took another afternoon nap and then we had dinner! Pretty uneventful, but we were enjoying the R&R before resuming a fast paced visit to Paris, London, and NYC.

Day 18: Thursday 3 July 2014

On this day we finally decided to really get out and do something! We got up around 9am and ran by the river again, it was a beautiful day! Even though I stink at running, it wasn't too bad, the nice views around me were distracting enough to mask the pain. We had a quick breakfast, cleaned up, and planned our escapade. One of the main sites we wanted to see was the Parc de la t'ete d'Or. It's a huge - central park-esque - park that also has zoo animals spread through out! It's very cool. We made sandwiches with a baguette and got some fresh fruit, chips, and made some cold couscous. It was a perfect picnic meal. Here's an excerpt from my journal:

It's been really nice, we are here now, sitting on two French flag beach towels we bought to take to Marseille with us on Saturday...it's a nice scene, big grassy patches, lots of locals, trees, and animals - Michael's reading a book and I'm writing - the temperature is perfect too! This is the life.  We're going to get up and explore some more in a few minutes.

And explore we did! Here are the pictures!

I am really missing this summer day typing this up in December!!! Ready for Euro trip nombre deux!

We spent the whole day in the park! We didn't leave until 6pm, but it was so worth it! It was such a relaxing day and wonderful time to spend together.  At one point we sat down on a bench near another elderly couple and I told Michael that would be us in 50 years...we'll be there before we know it. Crazy to think...

Day 19, Friday 4 July 2014

We had another laid back day this day as well.  In the morning we went up the funicular to see the basilica at the top of Four Viere.  It was a beautiful church and there was a great view of the city.  There's also a replica of the top tier of the Eiffel Tower at the top of the hill.  Definitely not as exciting to see as the real one, but still neat.  There are also some Roman ruins and we walked through them for a bit. I'm amazed every time we walk around anything so old and historical.  I can never believe how it's managed to stay so intact and I just love imagining how things used to be. Even as a kid I had an unusual fascination with seeing places where people have lived, it just put things into perspective for now and how we live today! I could read and study and visit these places every day! 

We decided we could handle walking down the hill instead of taking the funicular.  We headed toward Vieux Lyon (Old Lyon).  There is a really beautiful gothic style church at the center of the old city and we spent some time roaming the old cobblestone streets - I love those old streets! We got hungry and decided to get Kebabs, one of Michael's favorite foods from his mission.

Four Viere from the bottom of the hill!

Michael was excited about his Kebab!

So was I! Traditionally a Kebab is lamb meat cooked on a spit, then they shave it off in really thing pieces, heat it further, then put it in a pita with tomatoes, lettuce, onions, and sauce - basically a Turkish spin of Greek gyros! Equally delicious though!

After feasting on our Kebabs we went back to the apartment and napped! We were really loving our naps this week! We woke up in the evening and decided we'd just snack on our food and go out for some really yummy sorbet later at a place Michael remembered in Vieux Lyon. It was a fun night to go out.  It was the world cup and France was playing Germany. Of course we all know the outcome now...France lost, but it was still fun to go to Place Belle Coeur and see all of the fans watching on the big screen! We just passed through as we walked towards Vieux Lyon to get our sorbet.

YUM!!!

Day 20: Saturday 5 July 2014

See separate "A Day in Marseille" post.

Day 21: Sunday 6 July 2014

This day was really great! I only have a few pictures, but this one sums it up! We woke up very early to get to the church building that Michael was familiar with and had served in. It was hard to wake up because we'd had such a long day in Marseille the day before, but we survived! We had to leave at 8am to make it to 9am church.  On our way to the bus we passed by a couple of young adult women who looked to be close to our age and dressed in Sunday attire. They seemed a bit lost, so Michael offered help. Bingo! It's funny how as Mormons you can just tell - turns out they were both American and were also visiting and trying to find the church! We all stuck together and made our way to the building. To our surprise though, no body was at the church, and we were right on time! Lucky for us, a member drove up right as we were walking up and informed us that there was to be a special meeting at a conference room off of the Parc t'ete d'Or with Elder and Sister Anderson! We were astonished! What better weekend to visit than this to hear from an apostle! So, the four of us stuck together and journeyed back to town to get to the conference. Luckily it was starting at 10am, so we had an hour to make it! It was an amazing experience to hear from an apostle of the Lord. The spirit was so strong and we were just feeling so blessed to have had this experience together. After church we went back to the apartment and took a long nap. We were exhausted from our day trip to Marseille and knew we would need the energy to pack up and journey on to Paris the next day. 

Lyon was good to us...but we were ready to resume sight seeing with Paris and London ahead of us. If I ever visited again I would probably only stay for a few days, rather than a week.  The down time was good, but I would rather have spent it in another city or destination seeing more sights, but overall, we had a wonderful experience and would definitely recommend adding it to your itinerary if you ever plan to visit southern France.