Anna's Walks Around Lyon

 As we’re sure Anna’s mentioned before, Lyon is a very lovely and very walkable city.  She’s collected pix of some of the things she sees on her walks to share with you along with her musings.  

First of all, Lyon is a city of interesting and varied architecture.  Here are some of the residential buildings she has walked by:

Just take a look at all the great tile-work on this house!  We have no idea how old this house is, but it is obviously older than the buildings around it.  And, it is just really charming.  Wouldn't you like to get a closer look at that lovely front door with its leaded glass design?  Even the third floor (second floor in France) with its slate tile roof and smaller windows is quite attractive.  Do you suppose that floor was once servants' quarters?

The two buildings below are both apartment buildings and probably always have been.  But, they both have interesting features, lines, and colors that make them stand out as different from the usual, more "boxey" apartment buildings.  Makes one wonder what they are like inside!

Some of these older buildings also have beautiful doors that are kept polished and painted.  Here's a favorite:

Some of the newer buildings are also very attractive - this one for instance:

Continuing on her usual walking route, Anna typically takes a bit of a detour through Le Parc de la Tête d'Or.  This park was created in 1857, covers around 290 acres, and has no admission fee.

One of the gates to the park. 
If you look closely, you'll be able to see people
inside the gates.  That's how huge these gates are.

The Botanical Garden of Lyon is located in the Park and has some amazing exhibits.  It also has some interesting history.  During WWII the Resistants hid guns and ammunition in these green houses, and Jean Moulin once spent some time hiding here. 

Botanical Garden of Lyon green houses

The Park also includes a lake with boats available for rental, a zoo, a velodrome, a boules court, mini golf, a little train that travels around the park, a huge children's playground, a merry-go-round, lots of lovely lawns for picnic, play, or just lounging, and many, many paths that are perfect for strolling, running, and biking.  There is also an island in the lake that is a memorial to soldiers killed in combat.  Here are some pix to give you a glimpse of this great park:

The amazing rose gardens

With all the apartment buildings around you can see why this park is very, very popular - especially with families with young children.  And, we feel certain you will also understand why it's one of Anna's favorite destinations.

Day Trip #2 - Grand Site de France Solutré Pouilly Vergisson

Another of our annual rituals is walking up the Roche du Solutré and then enjoying a lovely lunch in the village of Solutré Pouilly.  The word “climbing” would really be inappropriate since one actually follows a trail, complete with some stair steps, to reach the top.  Although, there is a bit of rock climbing at the very top. 

There are actually three of these formations:  Mont de Pouilly (on the right in the photo above), Roche du Solutré (in the middle of the photo), and Roche de Vergisson (on the left in the photo).  These limestone escarpments are also quite interesting from a historical standpoint since it's estimated that humans lived here as long as 7,000 years ago. Together these formations comprise the “Grand Site de France Solutré Pouilly Vergisson.”  La Roche du Solutré is the most popular since it is the one with the groomed path with signage re nature and history, a museum with great history exhibits, a gift shop, and le Café de la Roche.  (It also has some notoriety since former French president François Mitterrand walked up it each Pentecost Day from 1946 to 1995 to fulfill a promise he made to a group of Resistants at the end of WWII.)

The Roche du Solutré is located in the south of the Burgundy Region, a little south and west of Mâcon.  We rent a car for the day and enjoy the drive that takes us north on an “A route” and then off through picturesque villages, farmland, and vineyards.  There is ample parking a short walk from the museum and gift shop and the start of the trail.  The view along the trail is lovely – especially in Spring.  There are lots of wildflowers along the way and spectacular views of villages and vineyards in the distance. 

The village of Solutré Pouilly from the trail.

There are also Konik Polski horses that have been introduced since they resemble some of the prehistoric horses that used to live in the area.  (They also prevent the proliferation of boxwood – an important added benefit.) 

Some of the Konik Polski horses.

The 360 ̊ view from the top is incredible!  The Roche de Vergisson is even more impressive from this viewpoint!   

Anna with The Roche de Vergisson and the countryside behind her.

Then, again, there are vineyards, farms, and villages as far as the eye can see.

After we retrace our steps and get back in the car, we drive the short distance to the village of Solutré-Pouilly and the charming auberge of La Courtille de Solutré.  We accidently discovered this auberge during our first trip to the Roche du Solutré.  It appears to be the only restaurant in the village.  Our first lunch there was incredible, and lunch there has become a part of our Roche du Solutré excursion ever since. (We have since noted the many red, yearly Michelin signs on the front of the restaurant.  Reservations are highly recommended!)

Our table was just to the left.

We requested a table on their patio this year since the weather was very pleasant.  As always, the service, wine selection, and food were wonderful.  (Somehow, ordering from a menu on a large blackboard adds to the ambiance and experience.)  

David enjoying our appetizer at our table on the patio.

                                                 So, here's what we had:

David had Rôti de filet de bœuf français brioché,
                          petits légumes, Os à moelle gratiné, avec sauce béarnaise -                                              Beef filet with sauce bearnaise, baby vegetables, and beef bone with marrow.

Anna had the Cocotte de Porc - Casserole of pork,
slow cooked with fresh garden vegetables

Anna's dessert was garden-fresh berries and a pastry with a creamy filling.

 

David's dessert was Moelleux au chocolat - a chocolate pastry with a molten center.

After lunch we made a quick detour next door to “The Atrium,” a small wine shop to purchase a few bottles of wine from Domaine Thibert, a favorite, local, family-owned winery.  We then drove through the countryside a bit before getting back on the “A Route” and our drive home. 

It is so nice to be able to enjoy these lovely experiences so close to our Lyon “home”!

Fun Group Lunches in Lyon

Restaurant for Lunch with the Brits

 We have written separately at various times about some of the lunch groups we participate in.  Some groups are men- or women-only, and others have both men and women participants.  Either way, they provide a congenial and fun setting for social interaction with both French and non-French people in the Lyon area.

 May Lunch with British

These groups typically are organized by one or two people and eat lunch at sometimes the same, or, a different restaurant each month.  The group that always includes both men and women is a British-based group, which admittedly makes it easier for us, with our sometimes-limited French conversational ability.  The women’s group is organized specifically for women who wish to speak English in a social environment. 

June Women's Group Lunch Restaurant

May Women's Lunch on a Barge on the Rhone River

May Men's Lunch Group

While there have sometimes been speakers organized for these lunches, over time, they have mostly now evolved into strictly social affairs.  In any case, for us, the lunches have provided an opportunity for us to expand the range of our acquaintances and of our experiences.

In Which David does the Hard Work Necessary to Get In Shape for the Annual Bike Trip

Thanks to covid and various other issues, this looks like the first year that the four of us (Roger, Gerard, Tom, David) will actually be able to our 4-5 day bike trip in a part of France.  This year, as previously mentioned, the group are looking at taking their bikes on the train to Geneva and then heading for Lac de Bourget to ride around that lake and the lake at Annecy, before taking the train back to Lyon.

David and Bike On the Sidewalk Outside Our Apartment

For David, this means doing a bit of practice riding around the Lyon area as he does little to no biking at home.  For him, biking is a means to see other parts of France, hang out with friends, and get some exercise.  Typically, he does 3-4 30-40km rides per week, mostly alone, but sometimes with others.  There are a lot of paved and smooth dirt bike paths in the area, so it is not difficult to accomplish this goal -outside of actually motivating oneself.

Usually, the practice rides are around a lake in a huge park at Miribel-Jonage, or up and down the Rhone or the Saone rivers.  All of these have excellent bike paths and lots of scenery.  Sometimes when David goes with a group, they will stop somewhere for a sack-lunch or stop at a restaurant.

Recently, most of the practice rides have been at Miribel-Jonage along a canal and out to an artificial lake that has become a mecca for competitive rowers, families picnicking, and people out fishing. 

David in Back With Group of Happy Bikers Near Lyon

One recent trip involved starting in Lyon going out to Miribel-Jonage and then up the hill to a plateau area where the group rode along country roads, past an old monastery, now called Domaine Boiron, before stopping for lunch at a picnic ground by a small lake.  Domaine Boiron is now used as a convention and meeting center for groups, and sits on spacious grounds in the countryside.

Domain Boiron

From there, the group rode through more scenic countryside, before heading for the town of Villars-les-Dombes and catching a train back to Lyon.  For the day the group did about 60km and saw a number of scenic areas.

David's Bike with David in Background at Lunch Stop

The interesting thing about the train trip – about 22 miles on the train - it made 4 or 5 stops, and still took only about 35 minutes.  Compare that to light rail from Sea-Tac to downtown Seattle that covers about 15 miles and, in our experience, takes a bit over an hour!  If we want people to use public transportation, we’re going to have to be a LOT more efficient at moving people from point to point.  [Sound Transit’s website advertises the trip at 38 minutes!?]

Day Trip #1 - Tain l'Hermitage

 We enjoy taking day trips while we are in Lyon.  There’s so much to see and do just a short distance away.

Our first one this visit was to Tain l’Hermitage – just a short, scenic train ride south.  The route is along the Rhône River and takes about an hour.  We go to Tain l’Hermitage pretty much each time we stay in Lyon.  You’ll soon see why.

This trip we arrived at about 10:30 AM which gave us plenty of time to wander around.  Since the train station is just a short walk from the main town, we were soon on our way. 

The Tain l'Hermitage Train Station

Tain has a lot of history.  Here are a couple of examples:

*The Romans were here (where weren’t they?) and built an altar for the sacrifice of bulls in about 184 AD. 

A replica of the altar in a public square. 
The real thing is in the Tourist Office.

Apparently, Tain was part of the Roman colony of Ludgunum (Lyon).  Since Tain was on the Roman road from Arles to Lyon, there is also a Roman milestone showing the distance between the two points.

*Then there’s the church of Notre Dame de Tain.  The present church only dates from 1838, but the original church was built in 10^th century by the Benedictines of Cluny.  One of Anna’s favorite French kings, Charles V, was married here in 1350 to Jeanne de Bourbon. 

Bronze statue of Charles and Jeanne
on their wedding day in front of the church.

They were both only twelve at the time, but their marriage was a long, harmonious one.  And, France was fortunate to have Charles V as their ruler from 1364 to 1380.  He is known as “Charles le Sage” (Charles the Wise).

There is much, much more great history in Tain l’Hermitage.  It is well worth the visit for history buffs!

While we are in Tain, we like to have lunch at Le Nice, a pleasant restaurant just across the street from the banks of the Rhône. Just check out this setting!

The restaurant Le Nice.

We eat outside and enjoy the view of the river and Tournon sur Rhône, the city on the other side of the river.  The good food and service and the relaxed ambiance definitely make this a great place to stop for lunch.

And, we never forget to stop at Valrhona's City of Chocolate when we are in Tain!  For any of you who have not had the pleasure of savoring chocolate from Valrhona, you really must put this on your to-do list.  Some restaurant menus in the US actually indicate that they use Valrhona Chocolate in their desserts.  Yep – it’s that good!  We prepare our shopping list in advance, and then purchase gifts, special requests, and, of course, our favorites.  Their store is amazing with so many varieties and flavors of chocolate from their sources throughout the world. 

This is only one small area of their store. 
So many choices, so little time!

We always leave with a large bag full of chocolate – both from our shopping list and from the extras they throw into our bag when they ring us up.

So, well-fed and ladened with a large bag of delicious chocolate, we strolled back to the train station for our comfortable ride back to Lyon.  What a lovely way to spend a day!

May Day #2 - Protests in Lyon

 In which we receive an eye-witness report on the May Day demonstrations and parade in Lyon.  As we have discussed earlier in these pages, May Day is a significant social and labor holiday in France.  It is a legal holiday on which employers must give workers the day off work.  The trains do run, but very little else operates on this day.  Even all public transportation in Lyon is shut down! 

As in the US, this is a significant day for unions and labor organizations.  In France it is also a traditional day for citizens to turn out and air any grievances they may have about the state of their lives and the country.  As noted in a preceding post, there is a good deal of displeasure over the increase in the retirement age from 62 to 64, and in the fact that the change was made without a direct vote of the legislature.

Our landlords, Stephane and Nathalie came to Lyon to march in the May 1 procession and later gave us an interesting first-hand account of how the march was organized and proceeded.  Neither Stephane nor Nathalie was interested in a violent situation, but they wanted to express their concern with both the change, how it was implemented, and also how they perceive that France is losing sight of the balance between work and other facets of personal life.

Stephane and Nathalie described how the march was structured with the various unions and other labor organizations in front, followed by individual marchers, often in family groups with children.  Few, if any, of these people were interested in anything more than peacefully turning out and demonstrating their concerns to the national government.  The labor organizations marched with large banners and flags with their union logos on them, sometimes singing or chanting slogans.

Demonstrations must be scheduled and authorized by the authorities, at least partly so the authorities can ensure the marchers are safe from vehicles, and in some cases, from opposing groups. The parade was escorted by the police, who blocked side streets in order to ensure that no vehicles impinged upon the marchers, and had officers in front and behind for the same reason.

Marching in Lyon

There is another element to these parades that sometimes appears – people who want to use the event as cover for more violent activities, such as attacking the police, vandalizing shops and government offices, and looting retail businesses.  These folks often dress in black, with masks over their faces, and are known as the “Black Blocs”.  These people are loosely organized and communicate across France and Europe with other like-minded groups.  Needless to say, clashes between the police and such groups can be violent. Unfortunately, as is often the case in such circumstances around the world, the police sometimes react in an ‘us vs them’ manner, perceiving all marchers as potential problems. This causes otherwise peaceful marchers to be unhappy with how the police interact with them and thus perceive the police as more of a threat to the marchers than the folks who are behaving violently towards the police or civic and private property.  In Lyon, the ‘Black Bloc’ was apparently out in front of all the other participants.

What is described in the above paragraph is a classic example of how an organized group’s actions result in the police reacting somewhat indiscriminately.  This in turn results in peaceful march participants becoming more strongly aggrieved than they already were. Clearly, this is a difficult situation for any police force, but the police will have to manage the situation better to avoid creating a citizenry that is more aggrieved than before.

In Anna and David’s recent discussion of these events with Stephane and Nathalie, the question was raised as to why the police did not simply surround and better control the Black Bloc folks so as to avoid some of the damage and to clearly demarcate between peaceful marchers and those bent largely on fomenting broader unrest.  This is no doubt more difficult than it sounds, but if progress could be made in that direction, then many of noted issues surrounding the march would be controlled.

Statistics – about 3000 marchers, about 35 arrests.  Not big numbers for a metropolitan area of well over a million people.

Burning Plastic Trash Cans and an Advertising Sign

From a larger point of view, does the government believe that tacitly allowing a level of violence and destruction reduces the number of potential legitimate protestors, and tends to paint the whole affair as somehow illegitimate?  We are not believers in conspiracy theories, but it would be interesting to know why, if the violent folks are a separate and distinct group, the authorities do not somehow focus more effort on controlling that group and devote more effort to conciliating the ordinary marchers.

In general, it would appear, for the moment, that organized protests have dwindled.  Will big protests reappear this summer after school is out?  Will Mr. Macron find a way to govern effectively with so many in the legislature opposed to him and his policies??