A Day in Lyon

Place Bellecour

I spent the day in Lyon on Saturday. It was beautiful and sunny in the morning when we arrived, and by lunch time fat snow flakes were falling on us. It was my first time in Lyon. Third city in France (after Paris and Marseille), about an hour and a half from Grenoble and gastronomical capital of the world. We started the day in the Place Bellecour- one of the biggest squares in Europe. And from there got a short tour of the surrounding neighborhoods and the Medieval portion of the city.

In Vieux Lyon

Riverside market

 We had lunch at the Comptoir des Marroniers, which is a "bouchon." A bouchon is a super Lyonnais restaurant where the specialties of the region are served, particularly lots and lots of meat. I went with a three course lunch of gâteau de foie de volaille (chicken liver pâté), then andouillette de deux moutardes (special Andouille sausage in a mustard sauce), and then crême caramel for desert. Of course with a nice  bottle of wine shared among our side of the table. It was delicious, and I'm pretty sure lunch took about 2 or 3 hours.

Our lunchtime Côte de Rhône

 In an attempt to walk off the rather heavy lunch we had, I broke off with some of my friends in the program and we climbed the hill up to the Basilique de Fourvière. It was a nice 20 minute walk uphill after which we had a pretty stunning view of Lyon and got to explore this basilica a little. It was while we were walking that the snow started, so our walk also became a game of catching snow flakes.

Basilique de Fourvière

On the River Saône

Over the course of the day, I also went to the same boulangerie twice. Because I've discovered probably my favorite pastry- brioche praline. The Lyon version of praline is bright red and delicious. The picture below is of praline on chouquettes, because I devoured my giant brioche too fast to actually take a picture of it. My friend got the thicker rolled praline and he declared it a religious experience. I agree and am joining the church of Lyonnais praline.

{Les chouquettes}

 It was a really nice day, getting to see this rather large city. Not enough time to see everything though, so hopefully I'll be able to go back soon and explore a bit more on my own.