What a surprisingly cool city. You just never know until you start the adventure.
Sticking with Jeff’s theme of ‘just winging it’, we hadn’t done any research into the history of the city because we didn’t have a route picked out between Norway and Portugal until after we got here 🙂
Ellen scored another great spot for us. Our hotel is in the historic part of the city, and just a block off of the river Saône. Lyon is the confluence of the Saône and Rhône rivers.
Our adorable front desk manager, a young woman, helped us map out our day last night. She is new to the area, born in the Congo, but has lived in France since she was 4. She gave us a map of the city and told us what not to miss. Where to get tickets for the ‘hop on/hop off’ bus, and to not miss the two funiculars in the area. Perfect because Notre Dame basilica is straight up a big hill from us in old town Lyon, and is at the end of one of the funiculars.
The first thing we learned is that Lyon is much bigger than we thought. It’s actually the third largest in France behind Paris and Marseille. Including suburbs, it’s around 2.5 million!
We decided we’d start with the bus around the city to make sure we hit the major attractions and figure out where we wanted to focus our time. Map in hand, we headed out. We went only a couple blocks and saw this:
Styled after Roman government buildings, the attic houses the first forensics lab. This is also where Klaus Barbie, Nazi war criminal, was tried and convicted.
We were only half way across the bridge when we looked back as saw this:
We thought it might be better to go there first to beat the crowds; it turned out the funicular was just a block away!
The basilica Notre-Dame of Fourvière is the work of the architects Pierre Bossan and Sainte-Marie Perrin. It was built thanks to a public subscription in 1872 and consecrated in 1896. The basilica is at the top of “the hill which prays”. It is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and is listed as a historical monument, registered to the UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Today, considered as the emblem of the city of Lyon, the basilica welcomes over 2.5 million pilgrims and visitors each year.
Hard to capture the magnitude of this Basilica. Those ceilings are about 75 feet high!
The cityscape view from outside the basilica is incredible! Hard to capture it all.
I did find a Little Prince treasure in the gift shop. One of my favorite stories.
From the Basilica, we took a walk (straight downhill) to the nearby Roman Ruins and amphitheaters. Lugdunum, today Lyon, was the name given to the Gallic site where a Roman colony was founded in 43BC and prospered during the Roman period.
The heart of the Roman city was on the hill of Fourvière where the basilica is now. Numerous public monuments were built in this area, which was full of life.
One of the oldest theatres in Roman Gaul was built here in around 20BC, then another smaller theatre, called an odeon, at the end of the 1st or start of the 2nd century AD. They welcomed thousands of spectators who came to attend performances with a mix of theatre, dance and music.
It’s cool to think these have been here since around the year 43 and that they were once crowded with Romans.
We’re getting good at all kinds of travel. We found the halfway stop on the other funicular just a block from the theatres, but it took a little critical thinking to pick the proper track, since they had one going up and one going down. 💥
Back at the bottom, it was time to see the city via a hop on/hop off bus. We stopped at the tourist office to buy our tickets and received some great tips on the best bus. Bonus – Senior discount and a coupon from our hotel. Drinks later!
On these buses, instead of those cheesy earphones we were used to, they had an App you could download and then just listen on your phone. I can’t describe all of the places because the App wouldn’t load (thank you T-Mobile 😡). So enjoy the highlights along the way.
There were so many things you could focus on, depending on your areas of interest. The doors of Lyon
And the terraces
Or cool shop signs
After an amazing overview of Lyon we were ready to walk the streets. You know we love street art. It always says so much about the artists, the neighborhoods and the people expressing themselves.
How lucky are Jellen today!!!
A few close ups
After another amazing adventure we found a corner bar to watch the last few kilometers of the Tour de France. Perfect ending and the bar tender was pleased that a Frenchman won stage 16 today.
There is still a lot to see tomorrow, stay tuned.
