Day 5: Lyon, France

Awoke to a beautiful day. The sun was shinning and the sky was a brilliant light blue color. There were several types of clouds scattered throughout the sky: Cirrus and Cumulus. These clouds are considered fair weather clouds. The storm the night before blew out and the day was going to be a beautiful day.
We checked out and found this adorable little breakfast place called City Bagels. The decor is done like a NY city diner. At each table was a toaster for you to toast your bagel. Though it was a small place, it was really cute. We ordered breakfast and just relaxed while the sun continued to rise in the sky.
After breakfast we walked to Lyon centre. The night before we were on the wrong side of the Rhone River. This area had a lot going on. Of course the beautiful Saturday day brought out tons of people.

One of the bridges that span the Rhone River is called the Lafayette Bridge. The statues on the bridge are copies of the Rhone and Saone statues, which are currently located at the Place Bellecour. They were done by Nicolas and Guillaume Coustou.While walking around we came across the Palasi du Commerce. This beautiful building was several blocks up from the Opera house. We walked along the streets and found Place des Terreaux. This area houses an open market on certain days. In the middle of the area is the lovely Bartholdi fountain. This fountain was done in 1889 by Bartholdi (guy who did the Statue of Liberty). The cravings are amazing. The fountain represents rivers flowing into the ocean. You can feel all that power of the river depicted in the horses. A river moves faster than the ocean. When a river flows into another large body of way, say an ocean, it slows down dramatically. This can be seen where deltas are formed. All the sediments carried by the river drop out and start forming the delta at the mouth of the river. Sorry for the mini-science lesson...At the other end of the area is the Hotel de Ville. Of course I had to comment on the name. Every place I had been so far had a Hotel de Ville. Kind of funny if you think about it.A went in search of classical music and S and I went in search of whatever we could find. We did browse some clothing, shoe, and homegoods stores. I saw a lovely Teapot and tea cups set but decided that I didn't want to lug it back. Of course S and A were sneaky and purchased the lovely set while I was touring with M during my second week and surprised me at Christmas time. S stopped by a bike store and purchased a remarkable made Holland bike. It was a really nice bike and looks like it will last a very long time if taken care of. She had the experience of riding one while in Amsterdam and loved it. She got it in purple and was excited about its arrival in the following week. (We couldn't fit it in the car since I was sitting in the back seat and for the small fact that the car was small to begin with.) Since she normally walks to work in the morning, she thought she would join the other bikers and commute this way to work. Of course when she comes back to the states she'll use it around her hometown.


Eventually we decided to head back to Geneva. A was playing in the worship band the next morning at church so getting back early to relax was the plan. On the drive back, we munched on cheese and crackers and fruit bought the night before at the grocery store. If I'm every in the area again, I would like to see more of Lyon then was we saw. I'm sure there are some more amazing sites to see of the city. Arriving back in Geneva, I packed up my bag for Monday when I would meet up with my friend M and spend my last week in Switzerland going to other cities. It will be nice having a travel companion and M is a lot of fun so I'm looking forward to it.

Days 4: Lyon, France

Since August 1st is Swiss Independence Day, S had the day off from work. For several weeks prior to this date, preparations were underway. This is the reason for the carnival along side the lake and all the traffic along the streets of Geneva. Because of this, S suggested getting out of Geneva for the weekend. Originally we were looking at other places, like Paris or another city, but because we dragged our feet finding hotels that didn't cost an arm, a leg, and a kidney, they were hard to come by. S suggested Lyon. She hadn't been there and had heard that it was nice. She made reservations at a Best Western. She didn't have high hopes for this place even though it was kind of pricey.

The morning of the 1st brought a beautiful day to Geneva. Since we didn't have plans we lounge around in the morning then got on the road about 10 am. As A drove the highway, several nice scenic views could be spotted from the back seat. At one point we were stuck on the mountain in traffic. S started making comments about how she couldn't take this again. I guess they had driven to another city and were in stop and barely go traffic for hours. So when we experienced stop and not going traffic, bad memories of the previous trip flooded back. Eventually traffic started moving again and A used his driving skills to speed us to the city. While we were entering the city, clouds started to roll in over the hills. It hadn't called for rain but then again, weather is chaotic and you can't actually predict it. We parked in a garage and decided to walk around before finding the hotel. Of course the sky opened up and we didn't do much walking at first. S got hungry so we stopped at a cute bistro type place. While she ate a nice pasta dish, it started pouring. We decided to linger over tea and espresso in hopes that the rain would subside. Well it really didn't . We then ran back to the car and decided to find the hotel after all.

Finding the hotel was a challenge seeing how it was nestled among other buildings and really didn't have any true markers. We grabbed the gear and A drove to the parking garage. After checking in, S and I carried the gear and tried to take the elevator to the floor. Of course this proved to be a challenge. Using the key pass didn't work, pushing the buttons didn't work, nothing seemed to work. It was a true comical scene. We decided to take the winding staircase to the room. The outer hallway appeared nice but S still wasn't impressed. We got to our room, open the door, and was hit with this unidentifiable smell. Supposedly this room was a suite but it sure didn't look like one. S wasn't impressed whatsoever. See, S travels a lot with business and has become accustom to 5 star hotels. Me, as long as I have a place to sleep for the night I'm ok. Side trip....Several years ago I was going on a research trip to Belize and Guatemala. S read the itinerary and stated "Nope! Not my kind of trip. Any place where you have to bring your bedding, isn't for me." Then again, camping in the rainforest with insects isn't her thing. It's definitely a God thing that we are friends because we have a lot of different interests. Anyway...after we dumped the gear, checked outside to see that it had stopped raining, decided to find a Starbucks and do some walking around.

While walking around I noticed that the area wasn't that maintained and was more of a place that seemed to be lacking key businesses. We didn't find the Starbucks right away but did find an Apple Store. Since A is an 'apple-geek' (and we love him for it), we stopped in the shop. I was playing around with the displays and found out where the Starbucks was along with finding out that the keyboard in Europe is different than the keyboard in the US. It was kind of frustrating since I type really fast and all my words that had a 'y' in them were wrong because the 'y' is located elsewhere than where I learned. A bought a pretty cool computer bag and then we headed off to Starbucks. We found a cute grocery store and decided to pick up some fruit, cheese, and crackers. Another side note...While in Switzerland I was given the task to find these chocolate bars, made by Nestle, that had raisins and nuts in them. Bob had brought several back after he came to Switzerland in 1998 and since his mom loves chocolate this was the first thing she asked me to find. 10 years and she still remembers that chocolate bar. Every place I went during my first week, Migros, Coop, Agrip, etc, I looked for these chocolate bars and couldn't find them. So while we were in this grocery store in FRANCE, S spotted the chocolate bars. I grabbed several for my mother-in-law. Of course after bringing them back, I find out they were dark chocolate and she really doesn't like dark chocolate. She still ate them, though. After the grocery store, we found Starbucks and relaxed for a few. The place was packed. It was cool to people watch while sipping some concoction I ordered.


After awhile, we headed back to the hotel room and decided to have gyros for dinner. There was a place around the corner from the hotel and A decided that he was 'union and not moving' so that left S and I to go get dinner. After munching on kabobs and fries and having a very different tasting Cherry Coke (tasted flat), we watched a movie then called it a night. Hopefully the next day would bring a clear, beautiful blue sky!