LYON

22 – 25 September 2023

With Christian’s passion for Rugby and our shared love of France, it was a fait accompli that we’d do the World Cup in 2023 and we’d been discussing it for years.

With 3 options on Emirates, we thought we’d give landing in Lyon a try since we’d already done Paris and Nice. A quick Google that revealed Lyon as the eating and drinking capital of France sealed the deal and the planning began!

We’d be spending the first week sightseeing in Lyon and then touring the Rhône Wine Route on our way down to Montpellier to meet RoRo. Then we three would drive to Marseille to meet another friend, Michele, from London and attend the game we’d booked, South Africa vs Tonga. We’d close off the tour with a breather in Perpignan before closing with a bang; a last night in Barcelona to attend a Blink 182 concert.

Quite used to the usual pre-vacation pressures and anticipating the expect-the-unexpected work crunches leading up to departure, we were thrown by our Airbnb host cancelling our Lyon accommodation the day before our departure in the midst of our last-minute mayhem! With a big game (Australia vs Wales) in Lyon on the Sunday, accommodation was in short supply – and a small fortune. Chris managed to get us a hotel room booking… and at the time of this writing had yet to have the courage to share the price tag with me.

Nonetheless, we were excited for our trip and the downtime of the flights actually helped quell the anxieties of the last-minute challenges. We were in full holiday mode by the time we cleared Passport Control at Saint Exupéry Airport, named after the Lyon-born author of famed fable novella, The Little Prince (which had been one of my high school French class setwork books).

Having travelled relatively light (one shared suitcase), we decided to brave public transport to get to our hotel. All our research had spotlighted the ease of navigating Lyon on the train, tram and bus network so there was no time like the present to dip proverbial toes in the water.

It was easy enough to manage the French on the ticket machine (thanks Duolingo!) and to find the train station outside the airport… like everyone else. There were so many people on the platform that we didn’t fit into the first 3-car train that arrived 10 minutes later. Several waiting would-be passengers (not travelling on the Rand, clearly) abandoned the wait in favour of Ubers and taxis. We stuck it out and deftly manoeuvred to the front of the platform to ensure our spot on the next train.

It was starting to rain as we arrived in the city centre at the Part Dieu Station, bustling with end-of-day commuters. Overwhelmed and under-ambitious, we caved and joined the short taxi queue to get door-to-door service.

The Hill Club hotel was a welcome sight, as was our economically-sized (but not priced) room.

Eager to get the party started, we dumped bags and began the intro tour we’d planned on the flight thanks to our downloaded offline Google Maps.

Lyon is shaped like a hotdog, where the Part Dieu station is on the edge of the right bun, old Town is on the left bun and an island sausage is in the middle separated from the bun by the ‘sauce’ rivers on either side. We were based in Confluence; at the bottom of the sausage, so to speak.

Even though it was Autumn, the day was still bright and warm when we emerged from the hotel around 17h00. Eager to see as much as we could, we ambled along the promenade of the Saône River (left of the hotdog sausage), taking in the areas of Saint Georges, Saint Jean and Saint Paul in our quest to experience the Old Town.

As is typical, at the farthest point of our walk, it started to drizzle. Fortunately, the French aren’t very literal about Happy Hour being an actual hour, so we were able to enjoy pints discounted (between 17h00 and 20h00) in one of the many pubs (with rugby on a big screen).

SATURDAY

Chris had had the foresight to book a 10h30 walking tour in advance, so with little to think about and an hour to kill, we took a morning run to soak in the fresh morning air along the river. The good people of Lyon shared the sentiment and there were many runners and cyclists moving along in either direction in the demarcated pedestrian lanes along the banks.

Having the rivers on either side helped enormously with getting us oriented, and our tour guide Jean-Davide (JD) opened the walking tour with expanding the mental picture for the group.

He explained that Lyon is also called Presqu’île, which literally translates as ‘almost island’ because it feels like an island but is actually a peninsula. Essentially, the rivers on either side of the sausage are La Saône in the west (on the left) and the Rhône in the East (on the right), which flow from North to South and meet at La Confluence, which is where we were staying.

We had met JD and the group outside the City Hall, commissioned by Louis XIV but adorned with Henry IV, who had famously been married in Lyon. There was also the equally notable Bartholdi Fountain landmark, built by the same sculptor as the Statue of Liberty. It was meant for Bordeaux in 1888, but they couldn’t afford it so Lyon snapped it up.

JD animatedly relayed the history of the landmarks at our meeting place and then broadened perspective to the greater lay of the land (bafflingly using compass points rather than my hotdog analogy).

Lyon, as a City more than two thousand years old, had a long and fascinating history. The Romans had split Gaul into 4 and called the capital (Lyon) Lugdunum. It was the capital of Gaul and even had its own mint. It is the second oldest Christian community in the world (behind Rome), which explains the concentration of churches and cathedrals – and sadly also the extent of the Christian persecution.

JD impressed that a large part of Lyon’s (slightly more recent) history was embedded in the silk trade and that we should explore the Working Hill (top of the sausage) where the silk trade was largely conducted and the Praying Hill (top of the left bun) with the cathedral and concentration of churches.

He also introduced us to the traboules of the city; a unique network of thoroughfares through the buildings in town that allow shortcuts. Invisible to the uninformed, a door from the street – that looked like any other door – allowed access to a passageway through the ground level of a building. These were used for centuries to first aid local residents to move from East to West in the town to get to the rivers for water, and later from North to South to allow workers to more easily move their silk wares from Working Hill to town.

The silk workers, or ‘Canuts’ as they were called, were overworked and under-paid, exacerbated by fluctuating silk prices. In French fashion, they protested. They petitioned three times to fix silk rates but only succeeded in 1848 when Paris revolted against the monarchy and formed the Second Republic (which didn’t last long, thanks to Napoleon).

There are more than 400 traboules around the city… which again provided value in modern times to the Resistance fighters in the Second World War since the passageways are unmapped and provided opportunities for nimble movement.

As we navigated the city, JD pointed out Street Art along the way. Although technically illegal, the art has become an accepted subculture as long as it was not painted directly onto the ancient and protected buildings. Consequently, artists like ‘Zorm’ have started affixing little 3D moulds of monkeys, bears and penguins onto walls around the city, ‘In the Whoop’ does mosaics of characters and superheroes, and ‘Britt’ is known for her political art decals about women and children rights. Another artist known as ‘Ememem’ (an onomatopoeia sounding like the revving of his scooter as he speeds away from his illicit creations) makes mosaics in potholes and where sidewalks have chipped. He would have his work cut out for him in South Africa where the potholes are plenty and the law enforcement flaky at best!

We ended our tour in Old Town, where JD pointed out and explained the Renaissance and Gothic architecture, as well as the nuances like painted windows (in olden times residents were taxed on how many windows they had so they bricked them up and painted windows in their place).

His parting advice was to try as much Lyonnaise food as possible since Lyon is the modern gastronomy capital of France. He showed us pictures of the dishes we had to try and those to avoid – like a crumbed and deep fried veal stomach that looked unsettlingly like a delicious schnitzel!

We were starving by this point – since it was early afternoon and we’d only had hasty chocolate pastries from the boulangerie en route to the walking tour – so leapt at the idea of spending a generous portion of the afternoon on a multi-course ‘cultural immersion’ in a local bouchon (restaurant that serves traditional food).

We got a recommendation – encouraged by the address on Rue de Bœuf (Beef Street) – and spent the next couple of hours working through a 3 course set menu:

• Œuf et meurette – poached egg in red wine, bacon and shallots sauce
• Gratinée Lyonnaise – French onion soup with melted Emmenthal
• Quenelle de brochet – fish souffle with lobster bisque sauce
• Saucisson Lyonnais – local sausage served with potato dauphinoise bake
• Cervelle des Canuts – creamy garlicky cheese
• Saint Marcellin – small wheel of gooey cheese that kicks Camembert and Brie’s ass!

Grateful to be in a walking town, we emerged from Bouchon Rouge full and happy, and with endless streets to wander down and a river on either side to walk along to aid digestion.

We made our way back to the hotel, stopping for a Happy Hours special for a short siesta to prepare for the big rugby game that evening.

Surfacing again, we stuck to our neighbourhood, La Confluence, and were drawn into a pub called Peaky Blinders Tavern, which had fun barstools with pedals attached to them.

Sadly, Ireland took our Springboks for 13:8 so the less said about that the better.

SUNDAY

What a blessing to wake up on a Sunday with no chores to do. We went for a gentle jog up La Saône and then across through the town to meet up with the Rhône. There was a market operating along the riverbank so they were plenty people out and about getting their weekly fresh produce shopping done as we nipped past, stopping here and there to take snaps.

We planned to take JD’s advice and climb after ‘Working Hill’ to Croix-Russe. In no particular hurry, there was time to stop in at the local boulangerie for our daily fix; a creamy, chewy, buttery roast chicken baguette.

Quite used to the lay of the land, we easily navigated along the wide pedestrian shopping street – which must have been more than a kilometre long – to get back to Place de la Terreaux where we had met JD the day before.

We re-traced some of the footsteps until we were sure of our way, and then shortcutted up the hill to our destination.

JD had made the recommendation for the weekly buzz of the market stalls along the street in Croix-Russe and had shared that the locals joked that there was no need for them to come down from the hill since they had everything they needed right up there.

They might have been right. We kept ourselves both entertained and well-fed by shopping for snacks along the market stalls. To top it off, it was a beautiful sunshiny day, so all of the Cafes and restaurants were heaving with customers, enjoying the sunshine on the plateau.

Highlights for us were sampling the local delicacies – Saucisson Brioche (sausage in buttery pastry casing that JD rightfully said was ‘not a f***ing hotdog!’… but could have been cousin to a sausage roll) and Pate Crouté (pork + pate + brine combo encased in pastry as a meatloaf and served in thick slices, either hot or cold).

Top experience was navigating the automated public bathroom pod. I almost stepped into the booth as the previous occupant was leaving, but a gentlemen grabbed my arm and pulled me out. Startled at first, it took a few exchanges in our shared Frenglish for him to explain that as the occupant leaves, the door automatically closes so that the pod can self-clean before indicating with the green light at the door that it’s ready for the next person. I could have had an unwelcome shower in the space-age Lav!

Relieved (in more ways than one), we enjoyed a bit of a sit at the park and lookout point, absorbing the view of the city and glistening rivers below as we tapped into the conversations around us to try and improve our French.

By the time we made our way back down to old town, it looked like Little Wales. With the Wales vs Australia game being played in Lyon at 17h00, all the many patriots were out in their red-shirted glory, and warming up in the pubs and restaurants. If the outcome of the game was going to be determined by quantum of fans, Wales would be giving the Wallabies a thumping.

Next was to find a pub in which to celebrate Happy Hour (where we could get a pint of lager for the manageable sum of €5) and the start of the Scotland vs Tonga game.

With the concentration of pubs, cafes and restaurants, we substantially narrowed the choice to those (few) offering free Wi-Fi. This led us to L’Alert Rouge (Red Alert), which surprised and delighted us with a hard rock soundtrack as we caught up on what was happening in the online world and on the field.

Since we had done more than 20km on foot over the course of the day and we were close to our neck of the woods, we decided to have dinner in the ‘Californian’ restaurant in our hotel with far-from-traditional cheeseburgers, loaded fries and mac ‘n cheese on the side.

MONDAY

Our morning jog ritual paid off, with some unexpected celeb-spotting and planned boulangerie-stopping.

Christian recognised Mils Muliaina who had more than 100 caps for the Kiwis and was in their team who took the 2011 Rugby World Cup victory. More notably, ‘Milsy’ is a rugby presenter on a sports show so his voice is quite a regular feature in our lounge in the weekend roundups. Chris, bless him, played it very cool with a double thumbs-up as we sashayed past.

We celebrated our aloof celeb engagement (very easy for me since I didn’t recognise him sans commentary) with baked goods. With a run behind us and a long day of wine-routing ahead of us, we upped the pain au chocolat ante with a Suisse as well.  It had the same buttery-pastry-choc-goodness as the pain but also a sort of custard centre. Definitely to be repeated!

On leaving our hotel, we passed Andy Ellis, another capped (but much less famous) Kiwi. We didn’t pay him more than a passing glance because we were off to catch a tram to Part Dieu station and our next adventure awaited us!