Sunday, August 10, 2008

Lyon





We were all up early (5 AM), so we got on the road early. Our next stop was Lyon, third largest city in France, rival to Paris, and about 2 hours from Geneva. To our surprise, we passed what we thought was CERN, the research facility with the world's largest particle accelerator, made popular by the Dan Brown novel "Angels and Demons". There were signs in French, but we could not quite pinpoint the location of the facility. We arrived into Lyon and got right down to sightseeing. We saw the Basilica of Notre Dame, perched way up high on a hill overlooking the city - incredible view of the city from there. Next we toured a couple of Roman amphitheaters in incredibly good shape and still used for outdoor concerts. Next stop was St. Jean (John) cathedral, which was closed, but sits in a very nice and popular square. We then went to place Bellecour, where we had a delicious lunch and at the same time let the kids run wild in the playground. After lunch, we visited one of the traboules, the city's secret passageways. There are about 40 of these passageways still in use which connect one street to another through a building. Supposedly, these passageways were used to transport goods to the marketplace to prevent them from getting wet. We took a drive through the old silk region (Lyon thrived on the silk trade in the 18 and 19 hundreds), and then we went back to the hotel for dinner and some R+R.