The building just above the trees to the right is the Cathedral St Jean in the Old Town.
We toured the Basilica (of Notre Dame) and it was nice. It is not an old structure, but built in the late 1800's. The site up here, however, was the original location of the Roman settlement that became the city of Lyon. The interior of the church is distinguished by the use of mosaic tiles along both sides of the walls. Here is a picture of the interior. Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures of the mosaics with my phone, but Rob did with his camera.
Immediately next door is an older church (although it looks brand new inside), but a mass was underway, so we could only peek in from the back. We elected to pass on the mass!
The other main sites up here are the old Roman ruins of the theaters and the baths. There is also a museum with exhibits on the Roman history. We skipped the museum and walk through the old ruins instead. The theaters (there are two) are very impressive. Here is a photo of the larger one:
You can see that much of the lower part has been restored and is obviously still in use, although I can offer no information on how it may be used today. We then walked in the direction of the Roman baths, but unfortunately we can only see a glimpse of them through a fence, not sure how we missed the entrance, but that is okay. We walked down an old narrow cobblestone street back to the old town, which is quite charming. In the old town we are ready for lunch, so we select a restaurant (from about one hundred choices!) called the Chef des Paniers. It looks nice and the staff seems very friendly. Our experience is nice, but not without a (major) hitch. We enjoy a glass of white wine (Macon). I start with a salad with goat cheese, which is delicious and kind of substantial. Rob has a warm pate with tomato sauce -- looks just like liver flavored Fancy Feast from the can, I remarked -- and I was right! Our main course was pan fried chicken breast with potatoes. Sounds good, right? Except that when we cut into our chicken, it was raw instead. Our waiter immediately recognized the problem, and we were each served another (fully cooked) serving (not the same chicken, of course). It was really too much food for lunch, but I was happy to get some chicken.
After lunch, we stopped briefly at our hotel and then proceeded to walk north along Republique through the main shopping district to find the Musee des Beaux Arts, which the guidebook identified as a must see here in Lyon. It is a very nice art museum. One floor is dedicated to antquities, which hold little interest for us, but we walked through them. The other floor is a representation of alll eras of European art from all countries, but also a large section featuring Lyonaise artists, which was interesting. There was also a room of Impressionist art, which is always a favorite. There was one particular Monet, featuring a winter scene that we especially liked. There was also a very dark Van Gogh portrait of a woman's face that was very dissimilar from what one would expect from Van Gogh. It was enjoyable. The museum is housed in a former Benedictine convent that apparently recruited from the woman of Lyon's better families. The building featured a lovely cloister where one could sit and admire the roses, so we did.
We walked back to our hotel for a late afternoon rest. We're almost over our jet lag, but not quite. The weather today has been overcast and cool. Fall is definitely setting in here in Lyon, even though it is only early September.
After our rest, we headed out for dinner at nearly 8pm. We were trying to eat late like the locals. We had decided to eat at a seafood restaurant called Moss that we had seen earlier on the Rue Merciere ("restaurant row"). The specialty there seemed to be oysters, but we were hoping that there will be other seafood as well. After we are seated, we saw on the menu that a cod dish is offered but only on Saturdays -- well, today is Saturday! We both ordered this, starting with green salads again. None of the restaurants have green salads on their menus, but they will all prepare a delicious one for you upon request. The dish was delicious. The cod was simply prepared -- poached, and it was served with vegetables of potatoe, turnip, carrot, zucchini, and a whole artichoke! Also on the side was a hard cooked egg and a serving of escargot. I had never had escargot, but we were game to try it. The flavor was okay, but we decided that they were overcooked, since their texture was particularly rubbery. Neither of us finished our portion of the escargot for that reason. We did eat everything else, though. It was a very satisfactory dinner! Here is a picture:
We ordered a dessert to share, which is unusual for us, but we wanted to try it: blackberry sorbet drowned in framboise (blackberry liqueur). It packed a wallop, but we finished every drop of it! I even remembered the French word for to share for when we ordered it: "partager." Anyone else old enough to remember the commercial for the jug wine from the 80's called Partage? Their TV ad always ended with the phrase: "Remember: Partager means to share ..." These are the things that get stuck in your head for decades, no less ... Argh! After dinner, we walked back to the hotel to turn in.
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