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| Lyon from La Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière |
9 Sept
We woke reasonably early, were mostly
packed with enough time to have a walk around Grenoble with the streets almost
to ourselves. We found the local marketplace where the providers were setting
up for the day’s trade. It would have been interesting to have a look through
but we didn't want to get in the way. On our way back to the room, we bought a
couple of croissants to have with coffee before setting off.
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| Market Building, Grenoble |
It was another rainy day and we were
underway by 8am taking the freeway to Chuyer to meet our friends and fellow
Wing riders Christine and Michel.
We were given a tour of their new home
which is currently being renovated. The property backs onto a rural area with
views to the French Alps when it's a clear day. In one of the garages, we were
shown two Goldwings. One is Michel and Christine’s, the other belongs to a
friend. Michel has been teasing us with his plans for our stay and what a
surprise. We are going for a two day ride through some of the great mountain
roads of the district. We will be riding Michel and Christine’s bike and they
will be on their friend’s bike.
We were also being introduced to the
French way of eating. Over a long lunch we discussed the next couple of days
and also what would be reasonable to do with our last few days in France.
Mid afternoon, we all took the Volvo
into Lyon for a look around and later for dinner. We took the cable car to Fourvière for a look inside the ornate La Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière.
The grounds of the
cathedral also overlook the city of Lyon. (See above photo).
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| Charleen, Clint & Christine |
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| Clint, Charleen & Michel |
From there is was a back to the city
to look inside Saint Jean Baptiste Cathedral as it housed an impressive-looking perpetual
clock. It was five minutes to four, so we waited for the chime. It didn't
happen and we were informed the clock hadn't worked since 2013.
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| It only worked for 730 years. |
Oh well, we’ll
go for a walk through the city to find a motorcycle accessory shop. On the way
we were guided through laneways of shops and shown the local specialties. Our
walk to the motorcycle accessory shop was a bit longer. It turns out the shop
wasn't as close as Michel remembered, but it was a good walk anyway.
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| Tourist Saturday in full swing |
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| There are interior laneways as well. |
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| A street carousel |
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| King Louis XIV |
Time for dinner and we were taken to
Comptoir Chabert to experience the Lyon specialities. The style of the meal was
like a buffet, but we had to select main dish from the menu.
The introductory
salads were brought to our table in large bowls. There was potato salad,
herring salad and a salad made from veal hoof, lentil salad, sausage salad, and
a salad of pigs snout. All intriguing dishes. We had each selected different
mains of spicy sausage in a rich dark sauce, tripe, beef tongue in a spicy
tomato sauce and a roulade of meat from the veal head. Surprisingly, there were
no frogs legs or escargot on the menu. The next course was from a selection of
cheeses and to finish desserts of poached pears, poached plums, rice pudding,
meringue, and creme caramel.
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| Just yum |
Although it was a lot of food, it was also ok to
only take a small amount of each of the shared salads and desserts. In a very
different concept, as we had our selection from the salad and desert bowls, the
bowls were then taken to other tables for the other diners to take what they
wanted. We discussed this practice wouldn't be acceptable in Australia due to
the strict food handling rules.
So now we are preparing for our bike
ride. There probably won't be a blog entry until we're back from that.
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