lyon, france. day deux

There is probably tons of things to do in Lyon, but honestly we were touristed out. We slept in till 10am. Finally hit the bricks around 2. There was a huge shopping center across the street from our hotel. We went inside to see what a frenchy mall looked like.


Micky d's? I haven't had McDonald's in years. Grosses me out. But in france? we were in the red zone hangry wise so we went in. Dan had the royal deluxe ( Le big mac) I had mcnuggets. I couldn't figure out how to say sweet and sour in french. turns out it's classic chinois. duh.We walked to the Notre dame de fourviere. The church on the top of the mountain. Locals say it looks like an upside down elephant. it's true. The patron saint of lyon is the virgin mary. so the church was built for her. It's actually two churches there's a church to joseph in the basement. it's not so gilded and fancy.




Instead of walking a gazillion stairs to the church, we took the funicular.

Inside the church. gold gold gold, and mosaics. virgin mary everywhere. it's her church after all....
no Walkman?

Outside of the church looking over the city of Lyon. looking north
East. that building is nicknamed "the pencil"
And south.
I'm faster going downstairs...
So we headed back into town. walked around. it started to rain. we sat and had a drink. Dan found an old restaurant on tripadvisor that sounded fun. we walked to the south end of town to....

Score!!! we arrived around 6:30, no reservations. We were seated right away. but then it got packed. built in 1836.
Seats 650! totally art deco, they make their own beer. Jazz band in the corner! killer lyon cuisine. which is pork, pork, pork! potatoes, sauerkraut, sausages. Cote-Rhone wines. I had a kir to start, and we had a bottle of 2006 pouilly fume. nice!

For the starter we split a calves feet and herring salad with lentils, potatoes and olive oil. oh baby. And a nice jar of country dijon on the table? forget it!

above is a very happy cristina. You want to win in my world? give me pickled cabbage of some sort. Weird right?

They placed some tea light under the charcroute to keep my sauerkraut warm. gangster right? this is living! I had ordered the smoked belly, pork loin, frankfurters and sausages, came with a POUND of sauerkraut and steamed potatoes.



Dan's dinner came in a skillet with a chicken thigh, some smoked pork belly potatoes, turnips and carrots. with a little broth. like a shallow stew. it was gooood.

For dessert. Dan had a baba rum, a little cake soaked in rum with whipped cream. When they brought it, they placed a BOTTLE OF RUM on the table. FREE rum? no portion rationing? these people are crazy. this is dan showing you the viewer how boozy this thing was. it was flammable!!!(not really, but close). We snuck shots when the wait staff wasn't looking. (don't judge!)



Here's a lil' video I made. sorry it's sideways. I was drunk off of dessert. There's an old guy that's giving me shade. whatever!

Since I had just devoured half a pig, 4 heads of pickled cabbage and some baby cow feet, i figures some sorbet would be nice. I ordered a lemon sorbet with a french kind of lemoncello poured on top. well.... it was lemon flavored fire water!! it came with a straw. it should have come with a stretcher and an accident waiver.

Nothing screams easter like a 100 lb chocolate egg with accompanying choc cock.


Dan had me place my hand, so you, the viewer could get a scale idea on how large these things were.

Fresh air!!!! here's the elephant shaped church at night.

Walking towards the hotel.
One of the bridges back home.
I'm having a mary tyler moment here..
The rhone river in Lyon at night.

slides down to the river front. some drunk guys were sliding down.
Lyonnaisians?
Walk don't run to the nearest hotel. we tried going out but that dinner practically killed us. We got so lost walking back! our sense of direction was gone and my phone had died , so no GPS to save us. passed out at the hotel. Thanks lyon! i'd go back to that restaurant in a second. tomorrow! Easter in Paris!

day 9. lyon, france.

April 10th, 2009
6:30 am
Tours, France.



We needed to wake up EARLY to catch our train to Lyon. The train went from tours to paris and then down to lyon. (stupid) but as I was told by a german guy " typical french! everything goes through paris!" (hater)

The station in tours.

We passed through paris, and caught our tgv train to Lyon. The tgv is france's bullet train, actually it's the worlds fastest train. Lyon is 466 km away from paris ( or 290 miles) We arrived in lyon in less then 2 hours! The train was so fast I was getting kinda scared. Some of the ride the train ran alongside a highway, just passing everyone. amazing! Above is a typical picture taken from a tgv train.



We arrived in tours, and found a cheapish room near the train station. It was really like a ramada or a holiday inn. Mostly for business people. We changed ,watched some music videos like this lil' guy



Back on the street! These are bikes owned and operated by the city. You can rent them by the day and there are stations all over. So you swipe your card grab a bike, do your errands or go to a friends house. and then return it at any of the stations! cool huh? They have the same system in paris. The bikes are grey and purple there. we couldn't rent because we didnt have the right kind of cards. So walkwalkwalk.

This is the rhone river. Our hotel was in the more industrial area of town. This is us heading towards the older historic bit.

Really great pedestrian bridge over the saone river.

Cool right? it swayed a bit because it was a suspended bridge.

The section of town we ended in was like the rodeo drive part of town. yawn. So since we we're getting a little asshole-y towards each other, we decided to grab a bite. Before we entered code red, hangry level.

Gyro with french fries? sure! mines plain.sans frites

Dan's heartattack special.


Dude whipped out a three string guitar thingy. this is dan being all spy like and shooting over his shoulder. too bad he used flash. cover blown!


coolcoolcoolcoolyesyesyesyes

Tiny roads and doorways. stairs everywhere. the town sits against a mountain that has a huge church on top.





This lady was backing into her apartments courtyard. god bless her. other car had parked like a dick!
Your buddies.

This is my drawing of dan on a bar coaster. notice the excellent use of perspective. The happy feelings projected by the subject, the use of french stickfigures smoking. The duck.

using my handy dandy iphone, dan found a jazz school that also operated as a sort of member only jazz club on the weekends. It's built in the basement of a really old apartment building in the "silverlake" part of town .

stairs stairs stairs.

in da club.

Run by two french guys, it looks like a cave inside. they had a small bar with wine and beer and soft drinks. some salumi and cheese for sale. Turned out the older lady behind the counter was from detroit! She's the owners wifey.

In classic style they all took turnes with solo's the t-bone player and the trumpet were the students. Piano was the emcee, but the older sax player was the best.

Trumpet was a tiny dude. kept opening his spit valve. sorta grossed me out.


it's sideways sorry....

We left around 11:30 , we were so tired. headed back down to our hotel.

Here is the fountain in front of the city hall. it's really great,but a poopy picture. here's a better one I found on the internets.


Next up! day two in Lyon!