Friday 12th August

Last night we experienced the gastronomic delight that Lyon is famous for. We have been told by several people that the food here is great and world famous. Jannie had duck and it was in a steak, a little bit like an eye fillet and the sauces and acreudiments were first class and so tasty. Moi, I had Salad au St Jacques, or scallops. They were big and so tender that they just melted in my mouth. We are going back there tonight.

This morning we went on the usual train. Let me tell you about the train system here. Very modern, no drivers so you can stand exactly where the driver would normally be and watch the stations come and go in front of a full width window. Very strange. The trains come every three minutes, they are clean and almost noise free as they have rubber tires. The stations are bright and clean and the escalator at the station on the other side of the Soane River has to be the highest/longest that we have been on. The lift at the same stop is 5 stories high.

We had brunch and caught the hop on hop off bus at the fifth stop on the route and went up one of the two hills that dominate the skyline of Lyon. The commentary suggested that we get off at the first stop on top of the hill and walk through the park to the next stop and catch the next bus!! Well off we got and the view over Lyon is still great but not as clear as it was on our first trip up the hill. The walk was great and we saw a family group all decked out with gloves and harnesses to do the tree climb and walk. Jannie said she wasn’t doing that! So on we walked to the next stop. We arrived with ten minutes to spare according to the timetable. No bus at the time and we waited, and waited. It was hot, we drank our water. I must say at this point that the schedule was for buses to arrive at every stop every 45minutes. The 11.30am bus eventually came at 12.15pm which was the next scheduled arrival and when I told the “same” lady bus driver that took us up the hill earlier that there was no bus at 11.30 am, she said that that bus was not running today!! Or that’s what I think she said.

We decided to stay on the bus for the whole journey instead of waiting the one and a half hours next time. We got back to the number one stop and read the written paper note taped to the timetable that there was only going to be one bus running today. We got off at Place des Terraux which is on the peninsula and had fruit salad and a beer. The Place was huge and had an enormous statue of a chariot and four horses carved out of stone, complete with gallons of water spouting and steam blowing out of the horses’ nostrils. We decided to walk all the way back to a Metro station where we could get our train back home. This is via a very long street with all of the label shops that you could imagine. Cartier, Hermes, Mont Blanc, Rolex to name but a few. Too expensive for us but there was a book shop where we bought a couple of novels because we are almost out of reading material and jannie bought a little sun top. Back home via the SuperMarche for wine, crackers (which we found in the imported section as all of the French biscuits are sweet) and Duck Pate.

Our hotel/apartments are lovely and we have a big room, big comfortable bed, small kitchenette and a bathroom that Jannie reckons is too small for the two of us. The car is parked in the basement and won’t move until Sunday. The restaurant and many others around the town are closed for holidays from the 6th August until the 28th August. Everyone here is telling us that there are few tourists here this year which accounts for the bus timetable I guess.