We flew to Lyon, France on Thursday. Lyon is a beautiful city located at the convergence of the rivers Saone and Rhone. We stayed in a hotel on the peninsula between the two. It makes a nice impression to arrive by night and see the many bridges and monuments all lit up.

We set out exploring on Friday, first walking through a delightful market with a huge assortment of meat, delectable cheeses, vegetables and fruits of every kind, and one particularly appealing stall of pastries and treats, including those French macaroons that I love. Having just had breakfast, I was able to restrain myself. We walked across one of the many bridges into Old Lyon (Vieux Lyon) which has these quaint traboules, or passageways, under and through the Renaissance townhouses that were used originally by silkweavers to deliver their wares and later were used by the French Resistance in World War II. You can walk through them but we decided not to, but did see a group of Japanese tourists coming out of one. We then climbed way up Fourvière hill to the Basilique de Notre Dame de Fourvière for a spectacular view overlooking the city. The climb nearly killed me, much worse than the climb up into St. Paul’s, but I made it, red-faced and with a heart rate higher than it should have been (and that’s after weeks of walking all over London and climbing the stairs to our flat every day!).

From there we walked over to the Roman ruins and the Musée Gallo Romaine. This was once the site of the Roman town of Lugdunum, founded in 43 BC, with the remains of its two theatres. The museum had an amazing amount of artifacts, beautifully laid out, and the building itself was set into the hillside. Then we walked down to and across the Saone to one of Paul Bocuse’s restaurants, Le Sud, for a delicious lunch. The chill air of the morning disappeared and it was happily warm enough to eat outside by a beautiful fountain. We then walked to the train station to purchase our tickets to Paris on Saturday morning. We took the subway up to the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and spent the rest of the afternoon seeing as much as we could see of that fine institution, although we did miss one floor. My favorite seventeenth-century painting was Vicenzo Campi’s Les Mangeurs de Ricotta. There were other paintings by Rembrandt, Rubens, Veronese, Boucher, Monet, Matisse, Leger, and Picasso, as well as many by an artist unfamiliar to me, Louis Janmot, one of which I particularly liked. After a short rest at our hotel, we walked back to Vieux Lyon for dinner. We found a cute little place where we enjoyed some delicious Lyonnaise food.

I wish my French were better. On the train to Paris on Saturday morning I thought the man said something about Depardieu (you know, the actor Gérard?)! But I later realized that he was referring to the other train station in Lyon, La Part-Dieu! We arrived in Paris over an hour late. At the train station’s taxi stand, there were many of us waiting for taxis and no taxis in sight. I must tell you that on Saturday night the final match in the Rugby World Cup was being held in Paris. France did not make it to the final match—it was between England and South Africa. Coincidentally or not, during this past week and including Saturday, there were strikes on the trains in France (and between London and Paris), causing a huge commuter problem. I guess the taxis were busy. After waiting over thirty minutes, with taxis trickling in every five or ten minutes, we were on our way to our hotel in the fourteenth arrondissement to meet my brother and sister-in-law who were spending the weekend in Paris en route to India. We walked to La Closerie des Lilas, a restaurant recommended by their friends, and had a fabulous lunch. We then walked and walked in the chilly by sunny weather—down Denfert-Rochereau, Boulevard Saint-Michel to the Seine, across the bridge to the Cathédrale Notre-Dame, first stopping for some Berthillon ice cream. The last time we were in Paris the cathedral was being cleaned and was covered in scaffolding. Today it looked beautiful. We walked along to the end of the Ile de la Cité and took a boat ride along the Seine. The young guide was not very good, but did point out the places of interest. We were on the open top deck initially but when we turned around to head in the opposite direction the wind forced us down into the interior of the boat.

Gord and I later tried to find a certain mussel restaurant from our last trip, but we walked and walked without success. We ended up in a small place in the Latin Quarter where the food was not great but not terrible either, and it didn't matter because we had a good time anyway. From there we decided to find a pub to watch the last part of the rugby game. We ended up in the Canadian, replete with hockey stick door handles and a wooden Mounty inside. England was losing badly, so the mood was fairly somber but very good-natured—there was one South African in the pub and everyone congratulated him at the end.

Sunday morning we went over to the Rue de Rivoli to Angelina’s for breakfast (really for their delicious hot chocolate). From there we walked down the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe, back down the Champs-Élysées through the Tuileries Gardens, past the entrance to the Louvre and out a side passage to the pedestrian bridge, Pont des Arts. It was beautiful on the bridge, with a nice view up and down the river. There were some people sitting on a bench with some bread and wine, looking quite content. We walked up to the Luxembourg Gardens. It was full of people, sitting in the sun, playing with their little sailboats in the fountain. Further down, there were a couple of outdoor ping pong (table tennis?) games going on. We went for an early dinner of crepes near the hotel and then said goodbye to J and K. Gord and I took the metro to the Gare du Nord where we caught the Eurostar train to London. I hadn’t realized that I had booked us to go first class (I selected the cheapest fare available at the time). And it included dinner! I was wishing I had foregone the crepes just a short while earlier. But it turned out well because the food on the train was terrible. It was wonderful to be in Paris and just walking around, enjoying the city. It was actually quite nice not to be in a museum for a change, although I thought how nice it would be to spend a semester there! There are many museums I haven’t seen yet.