Bienvenue à Lyon! (Welcome to Lyon). Today we made the short trip by train from the little town of Dijon to the big city of Lyon. We took a taxi from the train station to our hotel, located in the part of town known as “Presque-Ile.” (Do you remember what that means in anglais?).
Our hotel is on a little side street. I’m glad the taxi driver knew where it was, because we might have never found it by ourselves. There’s a sign for the hotel up high, but at street level, the only indication of a hotel is a little sign on a nondescript door. OK — so how do we get inside?
There’s a Hotel Here Somewhere
There was a button near the door, so we went ahead and pressed it. I didn’t hear anything, but I guess someone did because soon there was a buzz indicating that the door was unlocked. We dragged our suitcases inside the door and found ourselves in a tiny hallway that went about ten feet and dead-ended at an elevator – one of those tiny little European elevators.
We took the elevator up to the second floor, which is where we found the reception desk. Sure enough, we were in the right place, they knew who we were, and our room was ready. (Whew!)
To get to our room, we had to go back into the little elevator and up a couple of floors. When we got out, there was nothing but doors. We went through one of the doors that led to a hallway with more doors. Fortunately, one of those doors was the one to our room. Interesting set-up they have here.
The room was nice. How shall I say… quite cozy. Could it be possible that we had already forgotten how small hotel rooms are in Europe, after having stayed in nice, big apartments at our last two destinations? The answer to that question is, “yes.”
The room was small, but it was nicely decorated and spotless. It had large windows, and if I stuck my head out and looked down the street, I could see the Lyon Opera House.
Time to Check Out the Neighborhood
We decided to take a short walk around the immediate area while my beautiful, demure, and still under-the-weather Better Half still had some energy. Out through the doors and down the little elevator we went, and there we were, standing on the sidewalks of Lyon.
We could hear music. It sounded like a band of some kind was playing, so we headed toward the noise. After walking a block we came to a large square where all kinds of things were going on.
The square was an open area about the size of two city blocks. (We figured out later that we were at Place Bellecour). There was a band playing that sounded pretty good. There were lots of people everywhere. In one area they were collecting shoes that people donated. They were erecting a pile of shoes that was 40 or 50 feet high. There were all kinds of displays and people who wanted to tell you about things they thought you ought to know about.
We moved on to investigate other parts of our new neighborhood. Apparently we were in a shopping district, because there were lots of nice-looking stores. People were out in droves, many of them carrying big shopping bags. Was Christmas coming? Was this some kind of special sale day or something? We didn’t know, but there sure were a lot of people out and about, and spending money.
Restaurant Row
After walking a couple of blocks, we came to another square. This one was big, too, like the other one, but this one had a neat statue and fountain, and was quiet and peaceful. The street next to this square was packed with restaurants. Literally every business on both sides of the street for a two-block stretch was a restaurant. I’ve never seen anything like it.
There were restaurants on side streets, too. I had never seen so many restaurants in one area before. How could they all possibly stay in business? I had read that Lyon has more restaurants per capita than any other city, and now I’d imagine that that must be true.
Each restaurant had its own menu-of-the-day out front. Many had their own person out front, too, politely suggesting that if you want to have the absolute best dining experience, his or her place was the one to try. We’d be coming back to this part of town, that’s for sure.
To be continued…
Featured Image: Place Bellecour, Lyon
BELZUNCE Christian/Wikimedia Commons
