Have you ever thought of going to Lyon? Well, don’t hesitate, GO! ALLEZ-Y!
Martine went with her Friday morning class over a long weekend in July, everyone loved it and highly recommends it.
Here are some recommendations (quelques conseils) :
Visiting le vieux Lyon is a must (c’est incontournable). Go in the morning so that you can have access to les traboules. Les traboules are passages which link several buildings together and enable you to enter in one street and come out into another street.
You only have access to les traboules in the mornings: why? Try to find out, otherwise wait until the next blog to have the answer.
La cathédrale St Jean is beautiful and full of little gems, don’t forget to look at the sculptures around the three porches of the Western front (les bas-reliefs des trois portails sur la façade occidentale).
For a contrast, go up to la basilique Notre-Dame de Fourvière, built at the end of the 19th century (au 19ème siècle), in a very exuberant style, it dominates the city and can be seen from everywhere (on la voit de partout).
Two rivers cross the city, la Saône et le Rhône, so a trip on the Saône is highly recommended, it takes you along le vieux Lyon but also towards la confluence (where the two rivers join) and as you get nearer to it, you discover a variety of new buildings with incredibly imaginative designs. You eventually arrive au musée des Confluences, a science museum, which opened in December 2014. It looks like a floating crystal cloud, very striking! C’est aussi une visite incontournable!
You can’t go to Lyon, capitale de la gastronomie, without eating in un bouchon lyonnais:
Where does the name come from? Here is the explanation given by Le guichet du savoir in Lyon municipal library:
L’explication la plus fréquente fait remonter le nom au verbe “bouchonner“, lequel vise l’action de nettoyer et s’occuper d’un cheval arrivant dans une auberge, après une course. (rubbing down a horse when it arrived at an inn).
Do you now feel like rushing to Lyon at the first opportunity? Nous aussi!
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