We drove over to Lyon late Tuesday morning, parked our car at the hotel we had booked and took the metro into the city. We started in Vieux Lyon, the historic center of the city. We arrived a little after 1 pm, so the first order of business was to find lunch.
Due to its culinary reputation, the city is dotted with "veritable Lyonnais bouchons", tiny restaurants claiming to serve authentic lyonnais cuisine, which primarily consists of offal. Although our guide book doubted the authenticity of these touristy bouchons, there were indeed many of these little restaurants whose menus consisted almost exclusively of dishes featuring rognons (kidneys), tête au veau (veal's head), tripe (cow's stomach), or pieds au cochon (pig's feet). Therefore, we settled on a place that also had veggie crepes on the menu. The service was a bit sketchy, and the food was ok.
After lunch, we took one of the funiculaires (nicknamed ficelles, or threads, in Lyon) to the top of Fourvière Hill. On the hill, we listened to an audio guide for the 19th century basilica, which had amazing mosaics on its interior walls, and walked over to the ancient Roman theater. M had really wanted to see the Roman theater which is very well preserved and is used for concerts in the summer, but the park was closed due to snow and ice around the ruins. We had to content ourselves with walking along the wall surrounding the park and peering through the bushes. Back at the bottom of the hill, we stepped inside the Catédral St. Jean to peek around a bit before we went to the hotel for a rest. For dinner, we went to Brasserie Georges, a lyonnais institution which first opened in 1836. The experience was between being in a Munich beer hall and being at the Cheesecake Factory. The food was ok, but there was a lot of it. M had french onion soup (no beef) followed by an enormous plate of green beans and gratineed leek; K had sausages and sauerkraut.
If there is any place in our travels-to-date that could have benefitted from the use of doggie bags, it's definitely this place.
Wednesday morning we slept in. M was a bit disappointed in her Lyon food experience thus far and was ready to give up and go home. But K talked her into going to the epicurean food market Des Halles before we left. After some round-about navigation to get there, we found the market and Lyon lived up to its reputation. The market was amazing with just about everything edible that you could think of (and a whole lot of things that aren't considered edible in the States) inside. It had some small ethnic sections, lots of oyster bars, competing stalls with insanely-priced truffles, concept kitchens, delis, chocolatiers, etc.... M was in heaven. K was...well, he got bored kind of quickly.
However, after some hemming and hawing, M installed herself at the soup and quenelles bar (quenelles are Lyon's large dumplings), and K wandered off to find a way to entertain himself. While K wandered, M enjoyed the best meal she had in Lyon, a carrot and coconut milk soup with pan-fried organic chestnut quenelles topped off with a pistachio, chocolate-chunk cake and a shot of cold mango-coconut soup. It left a smile on her face. K finally managed to pull M away from the market, and they headed back to Vieux Lyon to see the cathedral in the light and to go in search of the famed Lyon coussins (small pillow-shaped candies, normally filled with chocolate). We finally found the candies and went in the cathedral to admire the beautiful stained glass windows. We also found a ruin of an early Christian church right next to the cathedral dating from around 4 AD. After the final bit of exploring, we metro'd back to the car and drove home.
For New Year's Eve, we got an invitation from Mike and Christina to join them at their apartment in Huningue, France just next to Basel, Switzerland. After we got to their apartment, we went on a brief walking tour (don't blink or you'll miss it) of the village of Huningue on the way to the bus to Basel. We arrived in Basel a half-hour or so before the sunset (which was obscured anyway by clouds and fog). We walked through the old part of Basel, saw the Minster, and watched a fun mechanical fountain. Then, we took a ferry across the Rhine. The ferry was neat; it is a boat tied to a rope strung across the two river banks. By carefully selecting the rudder position in the boat, the current of the river pushes the ferry to either side. We then walked back over the old Mittlesbrucke and caught the bus back to Huningue.
Since Mike and M were still sick and it was damp and cold, we decided to stay in instead of going out to see the fireworks being shot off over the Rhine in Basel. We played several games, ate fondue, chatted, and then watched multiple fireworks shows from Mike and Christina's apartment: some from Germany, some from Basel in Switzerland, and even some mini fireworks shows put on by the villagers of Huningue, France. We probably went to bed around 1:30 am. Saturday the First included more games (some in French) and a large, late breakfast of crepes, eggs, and bacon (for the meat-eaters in attendance). We headed home mid-afternoon on Saturday.
Lessons learned:
1. The going rate for black truffles is about 1300+ euros/kilogram, with white truffles at 2100 euros/kg. We're in the wrong business.
2. Pan-fried quenelles are reminiscent of tiny pan cakes.
3. Lyon is not the most veggie-friendly locale.
4. Although Italians may be missing toilet seats, the French may eliminate the commode fixture altogether. Let's just say it was a bit of a surprise at the French rest stop on the way to Lyon.
