Friday March 24 - Annecy - Lyon
So it was off to Lyon today - unfortunately we had decided to return our hire car to Geneva when we could have just taken the train from Annecy. Alas - the drive Geneva only took about 35 minutes then it took us another hour to find a petrol station then the train station. Anyway we made our train with some time to spare. on arrival in Lyon, we took a taxi to our hotel, Sofitel Bellecour, right on the Rhône. We had a junior suite (full suite in fact) overlooking the river. Lyon is situated at the junction of the Rhône and Saône rivers. The Sofitel was definitely a major step up from the Novotel - no plastic cups here - but alas no wine glasses. The complimentary mini-bar was soft drinks only.
It was around 2pm by the time we checked in so we set off to walk around the old town, stopping at the Grand Café de Negotiations - a real landmark in Lyon. We did a lot of window shopping - I plan to do a bit of shopping.
We had our complimentary welcome beverage in the hotel’s top floor bar overlooking the city - 2 glasses of Champagne - large ones at that.
We had dinner at the hotel’s brasserie (their fine dining restaurant is Michelin stared and very exxy) - the food at the brasserie was excellent.
Saturday March 25 - Lyon
It started out as a foggy cool day (8-15 ℃) - the sun made a brief appearance but then the clouds moved in. We went to the tourist bureau to get some advice on what to do and as a result walked along the Rhône for a few k’s to the Musée des Confluences (at the confluence of the Rhône and Saône rivers but in fact the museum of natural history). The architecture of the building is amazing - we opted not to pay the 9€ entrance fee but were still able to use their toilets. We continued walking along the Saône river - an area with a number of impressive ultra-modern buildings ending up at huge shopping centre - it was nearing 1pm so we tried to get into a couple of the restaurants but they all were either lined up or had waiting lists - the whole place was very busy. Just when we had given up and were about to head back to the old town we found a delicatessen which also served light snack-type meals with of course beer and wine. We shared a delicious cheese plate then took the tram back to the city - only 3 stops. We found the Carrefour (which we had been unable to locate the previous day) and bought a few things for fives’s We went back to our hotel for a bit of a rest.
We had dinner at a nearby restaurant, La Tassée which had been recommended by the concierge. It was excellent - 5 course dinner for 45€ - great value - the cheese seclection was to “die for”.
Sunday March 26 - Lyon
We got up around 8:30am - new time - to our total surprise France (/Europe) had changed to daylight saving time overnight. Breakfast was totally full - again a bit of a surprise. It was a wonderful sunny day. 9-17℃. So after a late breakfast we headed out to the old town and up the funicular to the basilica - we eventaully had a late lunch at a café then more walking. Back at the hotel we found out our room had not been make up even though it was past 4pm so we rang the front desk and gave them an ultimatum - clean now or never. We went back to Place Bellecour for a refreshment then returned to our cleaned room for showers and to get ready for dinner. We had dinner at a nearby Bistro, La Sud - one of Paul Boucouse’s joints. It was OK - Dieter was very happy with his Iberico pork and I was less than impressed with my Bresse chicken tagine - the wine, as always, was excellent.
Monday March 27 - Lyon
We got up around 8:30am again - as we were still adjusting to daylight saving time - after a quick breakfast and lazing around we set out on our designated “shopping day”. First stop was Les Halles - about 30 minutes walk away - a Paul Boocuse food hall - even though the signs (and the web) say it’s open Monday-Saturday - there was hardly anything open - about 10% of the stalls - mainly those serving sit down meals. We continued on to the nearly Gallerie - a huge shopping mall, right beside the main train station, which also had a Layfaette department store - we wandered around but could not find anything to get too excited about. We returned to Les Halles thinking we would have some lunch there but alas none of the places appealed to us so we walked back to the old town. It was getting quite late 1:45pm so we stopped at one of the first places we encountered, L’institution - a Lyon “institution” which we had wanted to check out in any case - we had a nice lunch sitting in the sun.
Since it was out last day in Lyon we decided for a quick meal in the hotel restaurant - one course and off to bed.