Hey Actifitters,
I landed early yesterday morning at Lyon Airport, and the plan was to spend the day with my cousin who lives nearby. She picked me up, and after a short break, we were off to the center of Lyon. The idea was to walk some of the trails to discover 'les pentes de la Croix-Rousse' in the historic neighborhood La Croix Rousse, hence the name. You can see six of them on the small map below.
But first, a good lunch was in order. We stopped at this great place called 'Noze'. Eating there at the terrace with a view of the Opera and Hotel de Ville is great, and the food is very good too! Plus, on top of a nice tasty lunch, we added an excellent dessert, cheesecake!
Now it was time to burn the extra calories with some walking! Even though we weren't sure we'd follow exactly the trails, we started with the Parcours Grande Cote
One thing I always like in this city is all these narrow streets and passages.
Especially when they lead to interesting places and buildings.
Or when funny things are part of the walls.
We arrived at Saint-Polycarpe church, first built around 1665.
You can still see impacts from canons during some war in 1793!
We kept going, walking up many stairs.
But that's worth it because when you get up there, there's a beautiful view of the city, including Fourviere on the right.
More stairs...
Then we started to mix in some of the other trails because we wanted to see other famous features of the area: traboules, where you basically walk through existing and inhabited buildings. This particular one is the Traboule et Cour des Voraces.
From outside it pretty much looks just like any other buildings.
That was pretty quick but we already saw many of the interesting points including le Gros Caillou (like wikipedia mentions, that would literally translate to 'big pebble') and many others , so we crossed over the Soane river. Beautiful with this weather!
And left this interesting neighborhood behind us.
Then we walked to our next target: Parc de la Tete d'Or and what's left of its zoo. This is an area where we both studied many years ago, so it was cool to revisit. First stop, giraffes! And this strange animal (maybe a watusi? Let me know if you know) really looking out of place with the giraffes.
Then the pelicans and pink flamingos.
Once again, an intruder was out there. Just like the pelican apparently wondered, I have no idea what this lemurien was doing with them!
A few more animals.
And beautiful gardens.
And we were done with this very short visit. That's definitely not an exhaustive introduction to the Croix Rousse district, or Parc de la Tete d'Or, but it gives an idea. And for sure, if you're in the area, take a few hours to walk some of these trails.
Finally, we drove back to our hometown, where I found a Sam, as goofy as ever.
And the sunsets above my favorite hills are also as beautiful as ever!
Well, that was a great day to start my trip, and considering the no-sleep week prior to the trip, the 14 hours travel time, and the limited time we had, we really made the best of it. I will probably slow down for a few days now, just spending time with my mother in my hometown.
As always, thanks for stopping by and see you tomorrow.
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