Simon suggested we meet him for lunch and a mini walking tour today around the Opéra National de Lyon, Place des Terreaux, and the like. It’s the area where he lives, works, and has done both for much of the past 20 years. We walked around quite a bit, including cutting through multiple traboules, and got lots of little nuggets of history and culture of Lyon. For instance, Benton asked about the old-school video game-type characters that we had seen placed 10-15’ off the ground on the corners of some buildings, and Simon immediately knew that that was the work of urban artist Invader! Plus, we had some quick and tasty empanadas as we went.
Simon suggested a bike route for after we parted, and we essentially followed that plan. We actually figured out the “Vélo’v” app and system (city bikes) and started by riding back to the apartment for an hour or two of walk-recovery. Then, we headed out (on bikes) and rode down to the confluence of the Rhône and Saône rivers. The whole area of the peninsula south of the train station to the confluence, Simon explained, had been seen as pretty undesirable real estate, so there had been a massive effort to add buildings and infrastructure there. The results are super modern…and pretty questionable aesthetically.
At the confluence itself, we hung out for a while goofing around taking various pictures before grabbing a new set of bikes and biked up the Rhône to a large park with a free zoo and waffles that Simon said were amazing (and he did not steer us wrong on his ice cream recommendation yesterday): Lézard du Parc de la Tête d’Or. Unfortunately… the zoo (and waffle place) closed 45 minutes before we arrived, and they’re also closed all day Tuesday (tomorrow). But, the park was interesting in and of itself—large, with a man made lake, and lots of people just relaxing and picnicking.
From the park, we headed back down along the Rhône on bikes to an area of the river that had bar boats docked—the bars themselves being on the (permanently docked) boats, and the seating for the bars being on land. We had a couple of drinks there, and then Tim grabbed a bike to head back to the apartment for a Carson-related call, while Benton and Lucy headed to one of the restaurants that Simon had recommended (a brasserie).
For all of that bike riding, we were out all of €12.60 (for all three of us), and we may get some more rides out of them tomorrow morning without incurring any additional charge!
An interesting/memorable experience of the day:
Benton: Lucy’s partial dehydration/inebriation from our “aperitif.”
Tim: Benton having noted that the French say “funny” (in English) when what they really mean is “fun”…and then having Simon do exactly that a couple of times (“I sometimes ride an electric scooter to work instead of walking because it’s faster and it’s funny”). And Lucy getting Benton to do several goofy antics for the camera.
