Lyon

At the beginning of June, we visited Lyon, which is about two hours away from Clermont-Ferrand. Lyon is known as the gastronomy capital of France, so naturally we started out with a dining tour! This took us to several different places, including a “Bouchon.” This is a traditional restaurant of Lyon that serves homemade regional dishes. We also went to a fromagerie (cheese shop), a chocolatier and a boucherie (a butcher shop). We also tried a piece of praline pie, which is a local dessert, and is essentially candy in a pie crust! It was delicious. 

We also got the opportunity to learn about and explore Lyon’s “Traboules”-no longer so secret passageways that were built long ago to help move commerce down to the river and to allow people to get from street to street and building to building. There are still some open to the public and if you keep your eyes peeled you can find them! 

After the dining tour we went up the hill to see the Roman ruins. It is a very cool feeling to walk the path of people from so long ago. They still use the amphitheater and were setting up for a concert while we were still there, so there was a bit of modern mixed in!

Next, we walked over to the Basilica of Notre-Dame, de Fourvièrem which was built between 1872 and 1896. It was very crowded so we didn’t stay long, but the architecture and the decor inside was amazing. I would love to see it again when it’s not so busy! 

On the second day of our trip to Lyon, we wandered down to the Parc de la Tête d'Or, which is a very large, lovely park with a lake and lots of gardens. We were short on time, so we rode a 2 person pedal bike around and got to see a lot of the park. It was very hot that afternoon, so after lunch (a delicious Mexican restaurant called Los Dos Hermanos) we gave ourselves a break and did a hop on, hop off bus tour that took us all around Lyon. There is so much to see there, and we didn’t even crack the surface on our short weekend trip.