Friday, 4 August 2017 to Thursday, 10 August  2017
It was mid afternoon when we took the metro to Croix Rousse for supper, but of course it was way too early for that, we had less important things to do. Lyon is the silk capital of the Europe so a stay here would not be complete without a visit to one of its silk related museums. We chose the one closet to our selected restaurant for the evening which happened to be La Maison des Canuts (House of the Lyonnais silk workers).France was a huge consumer of silk from Italy during the 14th to 15th Century but the silk was too heavy and became too expensive so at the time Louis XI decided to develop the silk industry in France and identified Lyon as the perfect location. The Lyonnais opposed the move and it was thus only during the 16th and 17th Century that Lyon really became the silk capital of Europe.

We spent about 45 minutes at La Maison des Canuts which was rather interesting but probably too long for what was on offer in the four rooms. However, there is a tour or presentation on the history of the silk trade but unfortunately our timing was wrong, the presentation was in French. They do have two presentations per week in English; this was not one of them.

 

 

 

We had identified the traboules we wanted to get into and when we left the museum we headed straight for that. Traboules are essentially secret passages between buildings, under streets and through courtyards which create shortcuts from one street to the next which the canuts used to quickly move their silk from their workshops to the textile merchants at the foot of the hill. These traboules also played a part during World War II where the resistance fighters found them equally handy to evade the Germans and thereby preventing the occupying Germans from taking complete control of Lyon. Apparently there are a total of 315 such passages in Lyon that link 230 streets, with a combined length of 50km.

 

 

As we emerged from our last traboule I headed straight into more. My stomach was churning with flame sharp cuts to my guts, ostensibly made by a surgical scalpel; I was hoping it was disinfected. I was searching for answers but found no questions. I determined that it could not have anything to do with either the silk trade, or the traboules… maybe it was something that I had eaten, but nothing came to mind. Either way, I knew I was in “traboule”.

“Where the hell did that come from?” I murmured to myself as I despondently dragged my body after Adri’s, she had a spring in her step, mine was all worn out. Adri had no sympathy for me and dragged my sorry arse up the hill, back down and once again up, in search of the Amphitheatre of the Three Gauls and the church called Église de Saint-Bruno des Chartreux. We did eventually find both, both were all locked up. Grr…

It was somewhere along this painful path that Adri insisted on getting me a Coke, I needed surgery, under anaesthetic this time please. After a couple of deep swigs from that bottle my innards were still churning as if tumbling in an overzealous washing machine. It was when we entered the home straight that my traboules disappeared, probably due to the promise of an imminent beer.

 

We had promised Cecilia, whom we met at the Star Ferry Pub earlier this week, that we would visit her at her workplace at Bistrot Jutard for supper tonight. And what a wonderful bistro it turned out to be, on the corner of Boulevard de la Croix-Rousse and Rue de la Terrasse. We found a spot outside on the terrace while the sun was dipping further below the buildings, ensuring that things cooled down a tad after this sweltering hot day. The weather was slightly better than a few days back, today it was only 35°C.

 

 

 

It was happy hour and we ordered the happy beers, they were icy cold. We watched the other patrons watching us, we watched the passerby watching us, it was a glorious early Friday evening with everyone getting in the mood for the weekend. We met up with Cecilia who was quite surprised to see us; I guess people don’t normally keep their promises.

 

 

 

 

The menu at Jutard is not large, and that’s a good thing, consisting of mainly starters with a few main courses in the mix. After Adri was told they were fresh out of Moules marinières et frites (Mussels marinières with chips) she went for two starters, a chicken wrap and a calamari salad. The wrap was okay, the calamari was divine.

 

 

 

I have not had a decent steak in a long while and when I saw the Angus steak, with “ANGUS” printed in bold uppercase letters on the menu, it sounded too tempting to ignore… I should have. That steak was godawful at a godawful price… just terrible. Angus? Angus my arse! If that was Angus my arse would be super prime Angus, or Wagyu… I hate being taken for a ride and tonight I went for an extended journey. I made Adri promise me, once again, to ensure that I never veer towards ordering steak in a restaurant, unless the steak was specifically endorsed by a close and trusted friend or family member.

The plan was to take a slow 3km stroll back home, mostly along the Rhone River, but my state of mind at that point only had the metro in mind. When we got home I needed something to cheer me up and remembered I had Coke and vanilla ice cream which ended up as a coke float, something I had far too often while still in SA and far too littler since being away. This must change, it was delicious.

Saturday morning we walked up the road to the wonderful Les Halles de Lyon – Paul Bocuse where there are a number of high-end food stalls and restaurants and wine shops and… One will truly get lost in food rapture here.

 

 

 

 

 

We did our grocery shopping at the Part Dieu Shopping Centre and afterwards had to hurry home, we were running late for the Super Rugby final between the Lions and the Crusaders. I had deliberately not bought beer as I wanted some Efes from my favourite little beer store down the road. The game had started, this was a battle for my brain… beer, rugby… beer, rugby. Fortunately Adri came up with a simple solution; she would go down to the store to buy me my beloved Efes. What a gal!

The game was pretty good but with the Lions losing a player to a red card in the first half, they were never going to win this thing. But, they put up a brave fight and lost only 25-17. Had they not been playing with one man missing I am sure they would have pulled it off.

After the rugby we continued watching TV and the IAAF World Championship came on, and I so love watching athletics. We saw SA take first and third in the long jump, these guys were really cool. We also watched Usain Bolt run his last race which unfortunately ended up without a bolt, with only bronze. Pity.

It was the first Sunday of the month in France, and I suspect in the rest of the world as well, but by now you know that here in France it means that some museums are gratuit. And we had identified the Gallo-Roman Museum of Lyon-Fourvière for a visit. It is located up on the Fourvière hill close to La Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière which we visited a while back. Now you may remember that I mentioned the million and one steps to get up there? Well, I was not about to repeat that mistake today.

And so it was that we boarded the funiculaire (funicular) at the Vieux Lyon Metro station which has two funicalaire running from there, one up to Fourvière and the other to St Just stations up on Fourvière hill. These are the only two remaining funiculars from the five that existed. The other three were either closed down or converted and integrated with the Lyon Metro system. One such conversion was the Croix Rousse one that was converted to a rack railway, of which I included pictures of a week or two back.

 

 

 

 

 

We entered the funicular at Vieux Lyon Metro and exited at the Fourvière station. As one emerges from the steps of the station you are greeted by that amazing sight of La Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière. A few blocks down from there we entered the Gallo-Roman Museum of Lyon-Fourvièr with our Zero Euro tickets in hand and marvelled at all that was on offer. There are so many Roman artefacts, tools, mosaics, jewellery, statues, inscriptions and columns; one simply cannot believe that so much from so many centuries ago had survived the onslaught of time.

Just below the museum there are two amphitheatres that exist side by side, Théâtre gallo-romain, the one can house some 10 000 people, the other around 3 000. It was quite amazing to walk among these ruins where people strolled, just like us, 2000 years ago.

 

 

 

 

With all this Roman on my mind I was reminded of an article I had read a few days back that described the Roman excavations currently underway in Vienne, a town 28km south of Lyon. It is believed that Vienne was inhabited by the Romans for some 300 years before it was abandoned after a series of fires. The article states that “Many of the objects in place when the inhabitants fled were conserved, transforming the area into a ‘real little Pompeii in Vienne’, according to Clement, referring to the Roman city-state that was largely preserved after being buried by volcanic ash.”

The weather was agreeable today, by midday it was in the mid 20s, later in the day it was in the late 20s, very comfortable, so a perfect day for walking the city and surrounds. And so it was that we abandoned the downward funicular and elected to walk down Fourvière hill… always better to select the down rather than the up.

We walked along the River Rhone and came upon a beer at an Aussie pub called Ayers Rock. Fortunately we found no dingoes devouring humans there (a very sad tale), although we did see humans devouring beers there. We each had a Pinte Blonde which is their daily special, or happy hour, starting at 14:00 with no end time. Trust the Aussies on this! I ordered a second but I knew it was time to leave when my view was getting blurred, my speech too… or is that slurred. We slurred our way back home…, or is that…

Monday went by in a blur and before we knew it the day greeted us with a goodbye and struggled up the street. We were slowly catching up with the admin monster but there is yet some way to go.

Tuesday morning I woke up to people carelessly re-stacking large iron sheets right outside our open window. It took me a while to realize that it was actually thunder that was entering my audio system. And then the rain came down, softly at first, then increasing in intensity and then backing off to continue its soft patter against the window, how soothing. It was time for a sleep-in followed by coffee in bed. What a wonderful way to almost wake up.

The rest of the day stayed cool; actually it was slightly cooler than that which prompted Adri to produce some pancakes, or crepes, for breakfast. Ham and cheese went into two of mine, followed by one with cinnamon and sugar, followed by one with vanilla ice-cream in its belly. Delicious!

We watched the long awaited vote of no confidence of Zuma… which, not surprisingly came to naught. But, with the yes vote count at 177, nine abstentions and the no count at 198, Zuma can hardly rest easy tonight… and he shouldn’t.

We also watched Wayde van Niekerk win gold in the 400m event at the IAAF Championships in London, he really did SA proud. The general sentiment in the international media is that he is the next Usain Bolt in the making. If you take into account that Wayde is the only sprinter in history that have run the 100m in under 10 seconds, the 200m in under 20 seconds and the 400m in under 44 seconds, they may not be that far off the mark. Be as it may, his nearest competitor crossed the finish line five metres behind him, all of them to a man lying on their back on the track, utterly exhausted… he was walking around barely breaking a sweat.

Wednesday we were planning on doing a daytrip to Annecy, a beautiful town two hours east of Lyon. But, oh dear, we got up too late for the bus schedules to accommodate us. We decided to stay in, another cool day…

Later on in the afternoon we went to the Part Dieu shopping centre to hang out and buy a few things and I finally found what I was looking for. I have been in the market for sneakers for a while but just could not get something that was comfortable, for me at least. Today I pulled on a pair of Asics sneakers and man, those things were comfortable, fitted like a glove… if you know what I mean. They unloaded cash from my credit card for this comfort; we’ll see how these work out for me.

After a spree at Carrefour we headed home, one of the items on the list was superglue. A small piece of the pot of the coffeemaker – which had obviously broken off previously – was affixed with superglue but that glue was now past its expiry date and the piece had come loose, again. This was no problem to me of course, I am a master at superglue, you will remember I fixed my plakka (sandal) a while back in Marseille with the stuff, so I was up to this task, or so I thought.

From the start this operation was a mess, doomed from birth. The glue that I bought proclaimed that it was in the form of a gel but, if that was the gel, I fear for the non-gel version. I tried to get the two pieces to gel but it kept giving up on me. I tried a number of times but they simply refused to stick together, and after the little tube was exhausted I was too so gave up.

By this time my finger tips were hard from the glue that had not surprisingly made its way there, it felt like I was wearing a thimble on each of my fingers. It’s quite a weird sensation, you should try it sometime… I suggest you use thimbles. I started washing my hands trying to rub this crap off my fingers but it’s not called superglue for nothing. And then I had a brainwave; only the one.

Out came the Leatherman Wave and in consultation with my one brainwave, I opened it up, un-clicked the file, tested both sides, selected the roughest one and started filing away at my fingertips; I’m not shitting you here. When I got to the skin I realized it was going to hurt, so in my mind I was just having a gentle finger massage but my mind wasn’t buying that at all. I kept on filing away, I felt like a criminal trying to amend his fingerprint profile, either way, I was in trouble. At the end of the filing session my finger tips were raw to the bone, it still felt hard but much better, at least I could feel when I touched something, even if it was just pain.

It was Thursday and we were getting visitors. Friends Estee and Dries from Pretoria were scheduled to arrive today for a visit. It was Dries’ 60^th birthday on Sunday and they decided to spend his birthday with us in Lyon. How cool is that!

They arrived in Paris early in the morning, took the train to Lyon where they were scheduled to arrive at 12:00, from where they would take a taxi to their hotel. We decided to surprise them and meet up at the Part Dieu station. We arrived there just as the people were disembarking from the train, and somehow we missed them. We walked around for the next 20 minutes hoping to catch a glimpse of them but to no avail. It was only later that we learnt the train was delayed, they arrived after we had left!

It was 18:00 when we met Dries and Estee at their hotel, and what an amazing reunion it was. We had not seen them in more than two years so they were truly a welcome sight here in Lyon. We ambled down to the River Rhone catching up on lost time.

We checked into the Star Ferry pub on the Rhone, which has by now become our local. As always the place was packed, not ‘n space for ‘n muis (no space for a mouse). I approached a lady sitting at a six seater by herself, hoping we could share her space. I think she got under the wrong impression and thought I wanted to buy her a drink, so she pointed to her boyfriend behind her, pointed to the beer in front of her and held up two fingers. I was not going to buy him a drink! Anyways, she moved off to join her boyfriend and we took over the table.

With the seating arrangements done there was only one thing left to do… drink, and we did. We ordered a cold meat platter to share and man, was that delicious. The beers flowed, the wines flowed, it was so wonderful to catch up with all the skindernuus (gossip) from SA. It was probably around 22:00 that we parted ways, two pairs of eyes were sadly sagging, and it was neither mine nor Adri’s.

 

 

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