The city of lions.... and dealing with terrible French pizza

Place Bellecour

Hello, everyone! Wow, 2 blog posts in only 4 days! I am so productive! ;) Today, I am going to talk about visiting Lyon as well as the sad mess that is French pizza. First things first, taking a long walking tour while being starving and freezing is not fun at all. I know that must seem shocking to you all, but it's true. Saturday, I went with my group, API, to Lyon. Lyon is the capital of the Rhone-Alps region (Grenoble is part of that one) and is the third largest city in France, after Paris and Marseilles. Compared to Grenoble, Lyon is staggering in size. What is interesting about this city is that when the Romans first settled in the area, they built on the hill overlooking the valley with the two rivers. Afterwards, the city expanded eastward. When you enter Lyon, you start out with the modern areas and then work your way backwards in time. The modern stuff, not going to lie, is really quite ugly. I felt like I was in Detroit or something. That could also be my bias against modern architecture talking, but even so, since Lyon is so industrial, the modern areas are not aesthetically pleasing.

Beautiful old well and awesome door

Happily, those don't last forever and once you get to Vieux Lyon (old Lyon), it is actually quite beautiful. We started our day in Place Bellecour. It was once a royal plaza so the area all around it is super nice. We then walked through a typical French marketplace and that was a huge mistake by our guide because we were all starving. Lyon is known for having some of the best cuisine in the world and the food definitely lived up to the hype. I will get to that in a minute. Like I was saying, marching all of us hungry, cold students through the amazing market was not a good idea. I know I didn't enjoy the tour, mostly because all I could think about was sitting and eating in a wonderfully warm cafe.

One of the two rivers that run through Lyon

I did manage to still take a few pictures of Lyon during this time, which is good because some of the architecture is really interesting and unique. For example, to use as little ground space as possible, they basically stacked the buildings on top of each other and there are long and narrow roads that run through the buildings to connect them. Unfortunately, my hands were freezing during this part of the tour, so I didn't get a picture, but I did get a picture of the cool circular staircases that I saw a lot of. During the tour, we also saw this church that has this really cool moving clock. Every hour, it moves and rings. The outside facade also had no heads on the statues, which was kinda sad. Apparently, the Protestants took them all off during the wars of religion and for some reason, they never replaced them. That part, I do not understand. Why keep them headless? But I am not French, so what do I know?

The video wouldn't work so now all you get is a lame picture

Afterwards, we went to lunch. I don't know if I've described traditional French meals at a restaurant, so I will do it now. So, if you go to get lunch or dinner, you can obviously order whatever off the menu (la carte), but they also have a menu of the day. You pick an appetizer (called un entree in french, which is really weird), a main dish, and then a dessert for usually 15 euros or so. You can pick one, two, or all 3. I had a salad with yummy goat cheese first, then I got this fish (un coulin or something like that), which was amazing. I ate almost all of it. Then, I had chocolate mousse for dessert. French meals like that last a minimum of 2 hours, which is a very different experience from the way we eat in the US.

We also had a waiter who was crabby, typical stereotypical mean Frenchmen to some people in my group. However, he was super nice to me. I think it's because I was also flustered about ordering because I hadn't decided yet and that must have been endearing or something. I gotta say, I have a superpower of being cute or sweet or something.

Me in the Basilica's crypt- can you believe this is where they keep dead people?

Anyways, after that, we went up to the big Basilica on the hill which is dedicated to the Virgin Mary, who is a protectrice of the city. Unfortunately, the actual church was closed, but we got to go in the crypt, which was extraordinarily beautiful on its own. I can only imagine what the actual basilica looks like.

After exploring for a while, my friend Carl and I walked down the hill to the ruins of two Roman theatres (a big and little one). That was the highlight of my trip. I actually got to sit where Romans once sat! The history nerd in me was freaking out. I also couldn't resist dancing on the stage.

The red tart is pralines

After that, we went back down to Vieux Lyon and tried one of the specialties of Lyon, pralines. They make tarts and brioches and all kinds of things with them. I tried a brioche a la praline, which was super yummy! I don't even like nuts very much. I think I liked the pralines because they coat them in red sugar so they taste really good.

Doing a calypso in the Roman theatre. No big deal.

Anyways, that brings my day in Lyon to an end. Now, before I end, I must really discuss the abysmal state of French pizza. Now granted, I've only had pizza three times now, but only 1 was good and it was Italian pizza. The two french ones I've had were horrible. The one was eggplant and the texture of it was so nasty. The other one had anchovies. I've never had anchovies and I really wish that was still the case. Good god, they were bad. Super salty and nasty. I am just going to make sure I get my pizza in the Italian quarter and then I think life will be ok.

This week, there are a few big events that I will try and take some pictures for. First, there is Mardi Gras tomorrow. Then, Friday, there is a party for Carnival. I have a mask I got today so I am all ready to go for those parties. A bientot, mes amies et ma famille!