Back in Lyon - April 18, 2018

We are back in Lyon, and the weather is lovely.  Blue skies, sunshine, slight breeze – ahhh!

Our trip got off to an interesting start, though.  Because the train workers are on strike (not every day, and not every train, but ours on the day we arrived), we were unable to catch our normal TGV which takes us from the airport to Lyon in ~ 2 hours.  Our other choices were (a) going into Paris and catching a different train for Lyon (hoping that one would be operating), (b) finding a bus going to Lyon, or, (c) as Nathalie, our landlady suggested, renting a car.  David checked into all the options and found renting a car to be the way to go.  We were relieved to find how easy it was to find the car rental office and the very pleasant agent who also gave us directions, and soon we were on our way. 

The agent’s directions sounded super easy – just two well-marked highways to the A6 and off to Lyon.  BUT, we found that it’s very important to turn the correct way onto the second highway.  After a scenic detour of about 1 ½ hours that had us touring several of the charming suburbs of Paris, we were on the A6 and on our way to Lyon and the apartment at 154 rue Moncey. 

Lovely Lyon!

David dropped Anna and our luggage off at the apartment and was off to buy gas and return the car.  Little did he know his adventure was not over!  Not only is there no signage to direct people trying to return cars, but the street name changed.  After circling the block a number of times, he somehow found the right building/car park, and a kind Security Guard directed him to the return area.  A nice walk back to the apartment, and he was “home.”  At this point he had been up for about 24 hours.

Time to bring up a few boxes of things stored in the basement, have a glass of wine, and collapse.