20240605 Wednesday, June 5, 2024; Paris to Lyon
After breakfast and packing some sandwiches for lunch we tried to summon an Uber in front of our hotel. Unfortunately, at that time of day (~8:15am) there is a shortage of Uber drivers and vehicles. We failed to connect with a driver after 30 minutes and as we were getting closer to a fail safe deadline, we canceled the Uber and went for a conventional Taxi instead. If we didn’t have the big suitcase, the metro could have gotten us to the train station in 20 minutes for only £2.15 but we would have had to gone down and up several sets of stairs. The taxi ended up costing £42 but showed up in only 4 minutes and did accept VISA card. Due to traffic, it took nearly 30 minutes to get to Gare de Lyon, but we got there just as the platform for our trip was posted. We pretty much walked straight through the station to the train and were some of the first onto our car. Again, there is very limited room for luggage, so it was good to be first so we could get our big suitcase and 2 small suitcases together so they could be cabled together for security.
While we were waiting for our train to leave the station, we noticed some Viking River Cruise personnel in their red uniforms standing the platform. There are Viking River Cruises that do go down the Rhône river. That would be a nice way to see this area as well.
The TGV advertises working on the train with power and internet, but we have found that neither is a promise necessarily kept. This first class car did have working power outlets with USB and European type C sockets, but while there was a Wifi network that you could log onto, the connection speed varied from zero to 3mbps, with it being closer to zero the entire trip. Ben was able to make sporadic 3G connections with his UK O2 SIM card, but it is best to simply assume there is going to be no internet or power for these TGV trains. Even GPS is very hard to receive because of the steel construction of the train cars. Ben was only able to get a GPS signal good enough to determine train speed by standing near a big window between cars, near where the bathroom is. When he did get a reading, it showed 205mph. It is surprisingly hard to get a speedometer reading with an iPhone. The Waze app can display a speedometer reading but it never was able to get a good enough GPS signal to work, and two other iOS speedometer apps also struggled to get enough GPS signal to work.
The TGV trains are fast and quiet. The first class seating we had this time placed us face to face with a small table between us. But there was very little leg room under the table so we had our legs intertwined. You wouldn’t want to have to sit with a total stranger like that. But for intercity travel in Europe, it sure is nice not to have to deal with the hassles of airport security lines.
The countryside of France flew by in a blur with lots of rolling hills and sporadic herds of white and brown and white cows. Soon enough, we were slowing down coasting into Lyon’s Part-Dieux train station. It takes just under 2 hours to get from Paris to Lyon by TGV. We disembarked the train onto an outdoor platform which was quite warm and sunny. It was 79˚F and just a little humid.
We entered the terminal building and had to figure out where to hail an Uber. It turns out, ride share services can’t use Taxi pick up curbs, so they use one of the underground parking lots. They must have free short term pick up privileges in the parking lot. We struggled a bit until we found another American woman who was also waiting for an Uber and confirmed the location as other passengers were getting into Ubers.
Our Uber picked us up shortly and took us through some very thick and chaotic traffic. Our driver was a woman probably in her 30’s who knew just about as much English as we knew French. One nice thing about Uber is you can enter the destination in the app so there is no need to actually converse with the drivers and payment is through the app so there is no exchange of money or credit cards.
The place where we will be staying in Lyon is kind of hard to get to because it is kind of situated in a pedestrian zone, so the Uber driver let us off as close as she could get and pointed us down the block to the hotel entrance. We arrived around 2pm and would not be able to get into our room until 4pm, but they did let us stash our suitcases in a closet and relax in their lobby. We ate the sandwiches we packed and started to familiarize ourselves with the layout of Lyon. There is an old Lyon district which is mostly across the Saône river from where the hotel is. The hotel is actually on a narrow peninsula between the confluence of the Saône and Rhône rivers. The hotel is in the middle of an older area with narrow irregular streets that go in seemingly random directions. The streets are lined with restaurants, shops and bars.
We got into our room and found the layout unique. There is a toilet room just off the entry door with just a toilet in it. The foyer is just big enough to isolate the entry door and toilet from the front room which combines a small kitchenette with a dining/living room. Actually, it could almost be a studio apartment because the sofa converts into two pull out twin beds. Then there is a hallway with two closets. One has a miniwasher/dryer all in one, and the other is just a closet. At the end of the hall is a shower/bath and sink room, and opposite the closets is the bedroom which has its own closet and small desk and drawers.
Our room is on the top floor. The air was heavily scented with some sort of deodorant so we opened the windows to ventilate it out. There is no air conditioning so the room was a bit warm (about 76˚F). We then discovered a pair of fans in the bedroom closet which we used to circulate the air in the two rooms. This helped cool the space down.
After unpacking our suitcases and getting chargers and toiletries set up, we went for a walk. We actually crossed the Saône River on a pedestrian suspension bridge and wandered into Old Lyon.
There are some ruins of an early Christian church adjacent to the Cathedral of St-Jean Baptiste, which itself is next to the Hall of Justice. The Cathedral’s facade opens onto the Old Lyon town square. The Cathedral was open and it has a lot of gothic stained glass which was catching the light like projectors on the inside of the cathedral walls. There is a fancy astronomical clock in the cathedral, but it was nearly completely enshrouded with scaffolding as it was undergoing restoration work. The Cathedral also has a museum of religious artifacts including several reliquaries, some of which appeared to contain bits of stone, bone and wood. There were several large tapestries illustrating scenes from the Old Testament and some very elaborate religious ceremonial garb.
After cooling off in the cathedral’s museum, we wandered through the streets of Old Lyon. We also checked out a restaurant that someone had recommended to John called Chez Chabert. We found it but it was closed. However, it was due to open at 7pm for dinner service, so we just continued to wander through Old Lyon until it did open. There are so many restaurants, bakeries, candy shops, gelato shops and other boutiques that it is hard to know where to go. It was pretty busy, but not uncomfortably crowded.
After 7pm, we wandered back to the Chez Chabert and were the first one’s through the door. The waitress Greta asked if we had reservations, and after we said no, she disappeared for a while, but then came back and took us into a back room to be seated. She explained the menu by bringing the chalk board from the front of the restaurant for us. There is a fixed price menu where there are all you can eat appetizers (about 6, brought to you in large bowls meant to serve tables of 8-10), followed by your choice of one main entree (there’s about 8 to choose from), followed by a cheese course, and then followed by “a parade of desserts” which included plums in wine, rice pudding, meringue, brandied pears, and flan. We ended up choosing flank steak with shallots for Janet and Beef tongue in spicy sauce for Ben.
We were caught a bit off guard by the concept of serving ourselves out of these buckets of the appetizers because when the first 3 buckets came out, we had no idea these were intended to be passed around a table of 8-10. In our case, we were the first one’s in the restaurant so we got first crack at the virgin buckets of appetizers. There were a couple of different cold pressed meats and preserves including aspics and pickled herring dishes, as well as a potato salad, lentil salad and pickled beets. Then came the mains, which were decent sized portions. Janet was unable to finish her flank steak so she was able to take much of it home in a takeout tray. The beef tongue was very tender and flavorful, although the spicy sauce was like arrabiata- potentially a bit too spicy, but it was also served with potatoes which mellowed it all out. Then came the cheese dishes which you could choose from 3 different cheeses. One was like Camembert (a bit stinky), one was a soft cream cheese which could be served with sugar, and the third was a soft cheese with herbs that turned out like a soft Boursin cheese. Finally the desserts came out and we were crying UNCLE! It was quite the culinary experience. We would have to warn anyone contemplating this Lyonnaise Bouchon style restaurant to fast for at least 8 hours before attempting this sort of meal.
It was about all we could do to walk back to the hotel and collapse on the bed in food comas after that. The room had cooled off considerably so we’ll plan on taking it easy tomorrow, sleeping in until hunger or our bladders get us up out of bed.
