Lyon, France -- Day 1

View from our Lyon hotel, yawn...

Tien's duck, foie gras and steak at Brasserie Georges

Lauren's andouillette with mustard sauce at Brasserie Georges

La Place Bellecour, at dusk, with Louis XIV and the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière

Institut Paul Bocuse, view into the kitchen from the sidewalk

Smart Car parking

Bowls in a shop window

* * * * * * * *

We arrived in Paris and, just as we thought, missed our train to Lyon.  There would be another in 45 minutes.  We were able to reuse our tickets because of a city train strike and we headed underground to the train platform to wait.  As written in David Liebowitz's book, "My Sweet Life in Paris," the French think nothing of stopping to say their goodbyes at the bottom of an escalator, to kiss-kiss both cheeks, and cause a massive pileup of shouting humans on moving machinery.

No lining up and much cutting to get ahead -- watch out for people running into you.  The train was packed and without empty seats, but there were many kind offers to relinquish theirs.  Forget about the reserved seats we paid for!  People in the aisles squeezed past and over luggage.  It was crazy but an adventure.  Tien chatted with a chemical engineer whose English was excellent.  The man was with his wife and their baby.

I watched as a woman got on the train and tapped an older man’s shoulder.  He gave up his seat for her.  Not long after, she got out of her seat to get magazines from her luggage two rows back and, later, she went back out again for her water.  These French!  While standing nearby, I watched her tweeze calloused cuticles, leaving peelings on her lap, euww, in public.  What else could I do but observe during our long ride?

We bought SIM cards for each of our phones, then added 9.99€ plans for data.  The system wouldn’t take my non-French credit card, so a phone rep named Chamini comp’d it.  Nice!

We spent two nights at Hôtel de Verdun, Best Western, 82, rue de la Charité, Lyon.  Our room is older, very basic, really clean and with crisp white sheets.  The view of rooftops is uninteresting, but Lyon awaits!  I was starving to death, with only a croissant and fruit for breakfast, and it was dinnertime.  We showered and felt much better.  At Brasserie Georges (in a huge dining room), we shared herring and gravlax with purple onions and bright red peppercorns.  Tien had duck, foie gras and steak with roasted potatoes.  I’d been craving andouillette (sausage of pork intestines) but the mustard sauce was too strong.  You know me, I ate it anyway – yum!  Despite our exhaustion, we took a walk to La Place Bellecour, then went back to our hotel.