Lyon- riots, rides and ravioli

Last weekend saw myself and a motley collection of friends descend on the French city of Lyon- the origin of Cinema, the world’s silk capital and heart of the French Revolution. At least, that’s what the guidebooks say. (Prepare yourself for a range of thrilling facts from said book). Anyway, the group comprised myself, Danielle (a friend from University here in Besançon), Katherine (my friend from Southampton who is currently studying in Portugal) and Ant (another friend from Southampton who studies in Lyon).

Lyon looks fairly close to Besançon on the map because it’s in the next region over, but the train journey in fact took 2 and a half hours, which just shows the size of France. We had to be on the train at 6.51AM which meant getting up at 5. I have to say that’s a tad earlier than my standard Saturday morning but well worth it, definitely!

On arriving in Lyon, Danielle and I whiled away an hour or so in a shopping centre adjacent to the train station whilst we waited for Katherine’s flight from Porto to land. The guidebook said that the shopping centre is one of the biggest city-centre shopping centres in Europe and Danielle and I will definitely corroborate that it was pretty big. There were 4 floors and numerous random bits coming off to the sides. It was so confusing that we suddenly found ourselves in a carpark on the roof!

By this time Katherine was arriving, so once we’d managed to spot each other in a train station which is apparently one of the busiest in Europe and running at near-capacity, we set off on the metro towards our hotel in the Confluence area of Lyon- an “up and coming area” which is set to double the size of Lyon’s city centre. After dropping off the luggage, we headed back out into the cold to the Christmas market which was the biggest I’ve ever seen with 140 wooden chalets and had everything from Bison Burgers to carousels where children had to wear seatbelts!

Ant soon arrived, so he gave us a nice tour of everything the city centre had to offer. As well as striking buildings and stunning views, we also caught a glimpse of a brilliant band from Ant’s university and a riot against the French political party “Front National”. The brass band were playing a variety of upbeat tunes whilst dressed in a most unusual fashion. There were plenty of fur coats, motorcycle helmets and an unnerving number of men in leggings. They were pretty talented and enjoyed swapping instruments from time to time as well as repeatedly taking their fur coats on and off.  The riot, on the other hand, involved rock throwing, tear gas and a water cannon. I’m glad that we weren’t any closer to this as it looked pretty extreme. The newspaper later told us that put simply the riot involved 3000+ people who were rather angry that the Front National (think BNP) were having their conference in Lyon.

Continuing our tour with Ant, we went through Vieux Lyon, the oldest part of the city which was really pretty. Much of the quarter dates to the middle ages and we wandered through narrow streets where the buildings were all really colourful. Next stop was “La Basilique de Notre-Dame de Fourvière” which sits on top of a hill, is accessed by funicular and gives amazing views over the city. Well it would have done if it wasn’t really dark and foggy by this point. You win some, you lose some…

DINNER TIME! We spent ages deciding where we wanted to eat and settled on a little place serving lots of pasta. Main courses were pretty standard and I had some kind of chorizo cream pasta. Dessert was a different story: there were some pretty standard puds on the menu, but I was most intrigued by chocolate ravioli OR goat’s cheese with salad. I settled on the chocolate ravioli and I have to say it was REALLY good, despite them looking like teabags.

After that, all that was left to do was bump into a strange man who told us he was wearing a black cape to mourn for his virginity which he had lost the week before, then to say goodbye to Ant and head to the hotel for the night.

The next morning we started the day off with a ride on a huge Ferris wheel. Let’s just say some of us found it scarier than others… What I found bizarre was that the day before, we’d seen children wearing seatbelts on a carousel and yet we went 60m in the air without basically any safety precautions. The doors to our little section were openable and when we had to stay at the very top for a short time while some others got off, it was definitely swinging.

Next up, we went to the “Parc de la Tête d’Or” in the north of the city where there was a giant LYON sign, an actual free zoo, a botanic garden and one of the tallest greenhouses in the world. Oh, and as always, we ate some churros which we really needed because it was bitterly cold. That was pretty much it for Sunday, so we then waved Danielle off.

Monday morning Katherine departed early, but I had the whole day to spend in Lyon, so I had a bit of an explore. As well as revisiting most of the places we’d seen in the dark, I stumbled upon an area of Lyon where basically every building seemed to be a café hosting an art exhibition. I also, visited the roman theatres which were incredibly impressive and had a proper look round the “Basilique” because we’d be unable to do so on Saturday due to Mass. I also enjoyed a nice meal at a café next to the Cathedral in Vieux Lyon- tagliatelle with sausages, onions and wine. It was particularly good because it was the dish of the day and an absolute bargain, and because it was sooo nice to get out of the cold.

Not too much later, it was time for me to head home too. The train journey wasn’t ideal because I nearly forgot to “composte” (validate) my ticket before I got on the train, so I had to run back down the stairs to find the machine and then dash back up to the train. The train journey also managed to take an additional half an hour to get back because of a freight train in front of us, but the saving grace was that despite the train looking quite dated from the outside, it was so nice inside that I thought I’d got on first class by mistake. And it was so quiet and empty- 5 of us in the carriage. UK train companies you have something to learn from that…If my Eurostar journey home for Christmas is like that, I’ll be the happiest person ever!