So this is a little bit late but I figured I'd better not skip Lyon since it was gorgeous and lots of fun. My friend Mandy who also went to Maryland and was a music major is doing the same program in a city called Roanne which is a short train ride from Lyon. So, I left my apartment at 4am one Friday morning and took a taxi, 2 trains, and a bus (because of course there was a strike at the moment and things got complicated) to Roanne to visit her. We spent Friday afternoon exploring Roanne, seeing all the cathedrals, and shopping a little bit, and preparing for our trip to Lyon in the morning.
Saturday we arrived in Lyon around 1 pm and decided to head slowly towards our hotel while, of course, shopping a little bit on the way. We walked down a couple piètons (pedestrian streets) and I finally found a black purse that I love!! This was very exciting because I had been looking for black since I got to France. We finally made it to our hotel and were a little surprised when there was a bathroom (obviously), a kitchenette (okay..), and no bed (what?). Yes, there was a pull-out couch and no bed. But whatever, we were in Lyon, so we dropped our stuff off and headed back to the metro. For anyone thinking about visiting France, Lyon has so far had the best and cheapest metro system that I've seen. I think it was 4€ for a daypass which is as much riding as you want (also note that in France you buy a ticket to get on the metro, not for how far away your destination is. In fact, you don't have to have your ticket to get off at the end so you can ride around as much as you want on one ticket as long as you dont leave (that's sortie, and to do it you follow the green man who looks like he's running on all the signs) the metro system.).
Anyways, our first stop was Vieux Lyon, which literally means Old Lyon, and is, as you guessed, the old section of Lyon. It was beautiful and full of boutiques, lots of food, ancient book stores, and a huge cathedral which Mandy and I took way too many pictures of. There was also some sort of book signing going on in the cathedral when we were there with lots of old people getting giant books about French cathedrals signed by religiously-important-looking people. That was a bit bizarre but it was cool because they had a youth choir singing for the signing so it was neat to see the cathedral in action. Next we ate at a restaurant called Le Petit Glouton which had a man making crêpes at a stand out front who actually kind of worked for the restaurant so when we ordered crêpes for dessert, he made them. They were delicious, although I would've been ok with a little more nutella on mine.
Next, we started to head back East towards centre-ville because we knew we would get distracted and take a while and we had tickets to see Orchestre National de Lyon at 8pm! To understand our walk it's important to know that Lyon is basically a city in a valley with two giant rivers that divide the city into three sections. Vieux Lyon is on the left of these rivers, things like the town hall (called a mairie in French), Musée des Beaux Arts, and the opera house are in the middle, and lots of shopping, the auditorium where the ONL plays, and the soccer stadium are on the right of them. So we had to cross two rivers and lots of pretty boutiques and parcs to get to our destination. We made it in time although I did have to drag Mandy away from what was probably our third huge cathedral of the day and found our seats for the concert.
The concert was Beethoven's Overture to Leonore 3, Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem, and Strauss' Ein Heldenleben (although the program translated Ein Heldenleben to Une vie de Héros which was bizarre because even in the US we leave it in German). Leonore 3 is interesting because it was written as an Overture to an opera that apparently was terrible because noone ever performs it but the Overture has lasted as it's own sort-of piece. There is an important offstage trumpet solo, though, so I was looking forward to this. It went well although the trumpet solo was played very differently than it is in the US. It's one of those excerpts that looks very simple but is generally played with lots of tempo alterations and stylized things like that which the French player didn't really do. Maybe it's taught differently in Europe, I'll have to ask someone. Next was the Britten which I had never heard but was really, really, interesting and I liked a lot. Last was Ein Heldenleben which I love and which was very well played except for the 1st cornet missed a note in the big solo during the battle scene which was dissapointing but happens.
After the concert we got dinner at this cool little Italian place that had a wood-stove, so of course I got pizza, and then walked along the rivers to see it in the lights and headed back to our hotel without a bed.
The next morning we woke up early to head to La Fourvière. Remember how I told you Lyon is in a valley? Well La Fourvière, also known as La Basilique Notre Dame de Lyon, is a huge cathedral up on the giant hill beside Lyon. We took these cool funiculaires (basically trollies) up the very steep hill and were literally shocked by how cool this cathedral is and especially the view from its backyard of Lyon. Behind it are orchards, rose gardens, and lots of cool trails that wind back down the mountain to the city so we walked down some of these but didn't want to get all the way to the bottom just yet because next to a Fourvière are Roman Ruins of ampitheatres. There were two ampitheatres, a large main one, and a smaller one used for music, and you were allowed to climb all over them and walk in and around all the rooms and touch the old columns. I met these two brothers from Tennessee in the music ampitheatre and talked to them and we played around with the acoustics which were amazing. I stood onstage and whispered to one of the brothers while the other one walked around the top row and he could hear our conversation even though the ampitheatre is half destroyed. The ruins and la Fourvière were easily my favorite parts of Lyon.
Next we came back down the hill via the funiculaires and headed to the little area between the rivers to see la mairie, the opera house, and go to the Musée des Beaux Arts. The museum was full of interesting art and sculptures and we spent a couple more hours wandering around there before we were exhausted. So we headed back to the train station and took a train back to Mandy's to get some chocolate for dinner, watch Saving Private Ryan, and sleep before I had to get up at 3:30 to head back to Creutzwald to teach.
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