Only in Lyon...

Yesterday, I ventured off to Lyon with a few other girls from the program... and we had an adventure! Most of the group had gone to Paris for the weekend, leaving a handful of us to fend for ourselves; so Tori, Katie, Renee and I went to Lyon. The train ride there took just over an hour from our dear old Chambery, and it was nice, scenic break from our apartments. Since we hadn't taken off as early in the morning as originally planned, our first order of business was lunch. And where else do you eat lunch in Lyon but at a sit-down burger joint called The Hippopotamus? The burgers were actually excellent and left us fueled up and ready to face the city!

At Pont Lafayette looking down the river onto Lyon

First, we set off in search of the St. John's Cathedral, but we were stopped by something along the way. We hadn't been in Lyon for more than 2 hours, and we found ourselves smack dab in the middle of a motorcycle rally! It looked like it was just beginning -- or perhaps just ending -- and people were crowded all around to get pictures and videos of the festivities.

Above: Bikers as far as the eye can see!
Right: Inside St. John's Cathedral

Once we made it through the crowd of bikers, we started toward St. John's. The walk took us a bit longer than we'd anticipated -- we may have made a wrong turn or two -- but the cathedral was worth the mix-ups. It was beautiful! Well, at least the inside was. The front of the cathedral was under renovations, so we didn't get to see it in all of its glory.

After we finished gawking at St. John's, we found what appeared to be a small up-mountain train/cable car, and we paid the 2.50 euros to ride it up to the Gallo-Roman ruins and the Notre Dame de Fourviere. The ruins were spectacular! It's amazing to think that something man-made can actually survive that long, especially in a society like ours, in which we tear down anything that has been standing for more than 50 years. The only way that the ruins could have been more amazing is if they weren't currently setting up a huge  stage and guard rails for a concert there. To be honest, that really surprised me: they have concerts on the ruins that predate France as we know it, but you can't even take pictures inside the Abbaye (which 90 percent of is less than a century old). The Notre Dame de Fourviere was even more beautiful than St. John's Cathedral. The architecture was so articulate that it completely blew my mind. I don't think I have yet to fully grasp the perplexities in the stone work of most of that building.

Above: Notre Dame de Fourviere
Right: Inside the Notre Dame de Fourviere

Once we had taken the little car/train back down to "Vieux Lyon," or the old town of Lyon, we started to head back to the train station. We had noticed a building trimmed with gold on our way to St. John's, and we wanted to get a closer look, see what it was, on our way back. As we got closer to the building, however, we hear music growing louder and louder and saw a large crowd. Once we were about a block away we could see that it was gay pride parade! Only Lyon, I thought then, could bring a motorcycle rally, some of the most beautiful churches in the world, and a gay pride parade together... and let me see them all in one day! I had never seen a gay pride parade in person before, and the atmosphere was absolutely electrifying. There was music, people dancing and waving flags -- or in some cases wearing flags -- and we saw some of the most interesting outfits. And the building this all happened in front of, the gold-trimmed one we had been looking for, was the Hotel de Ville of Lyon.

Above: A float in the parade (3 blocks from where the
motorcycle rally had been)
Below: My sad attempt to capture the spirit.

Some serious shoes!

We were afraid to try to cross the parade line, so we waited until it was over to head back to the train station. The other 3 had purchased open-ended return tickets. I wasn't aware we could do that, so I still had to buy my ticket for the train back to Chambery. When I bought my ticket, the seller told me the next train was to leave in 5 minutes, but what he actually meant was, "It's leaving right now, but I'm going to sell this to you anyway." When I had checked the train schedule for the day online, just that morning, it looked as if there would be 4 trains between 6:00 and 9:00 pm -- when there would be a bus. The train we missed was at 6:30, and there were none after that. So lesson of the day: don't believe online train schedules. We were told the bus at 9 pm was our last option, so we went out to the bus stop at exactly the time it was due to arrive. It was already full! Since there were at least 20 people turned away from that bus, we were told to take the train headed toward Annecy, and get off at Aix les Bains, where they would have a bus waiting to take us all to Chambery. We finally made it home around 11:00 at night, laughing our heads off about the adventure we'd had that day.

To think, I wasn't even going to go to Lyon on the group trip which is scheduled for next Thursday. I had such a great experience, though, in my one day there! And there are still a couple of things I didn't get to see -- like the silk shops and the National Opera House. I will definitely be spending the 25 euro to go back for another afternoon :)