20240607 Friday June 7, 2024; Exploring the Croix-Rousse
After doing some research on Lyonnaise cuisine, we learned that we really needed to try a Lyonnaise Pink Praline tort. A specialty of the region is a praline candy which is almonds and hazel nuts encased in a pink hard candy shell.
These are then crushed, cooked with heavy cream and poured into a pastry crust. We had seem these, as well as some crazy looking breads with pink and nuts in them in several bakery windows, so we picked up a small pink praline tort for breakfast. It does have a zing to it which really complements the buttery pastry base. We may have to pick up some of the ingredients to see if we can duplicate it at home someday.
We wandered back north today, aiming to see the north part of Vieux (Old) Lyon and cross over into Croix-Rousse, the hillside that forms the north part of the UNESCO world heritage site boundary within Lyon. We crossed over the Saône River at the Palace of Justice and wandered through more of the back streets. Tourist buses were unloading their passengers right in front of the Bouchon where we stuffed ourselves our first night. Some of these were off a Viking River cruise ship. It was easy to recognize the big red lollipop Viking signs.
We encountered an occasional historical building and a few other interesting businesses including a cabaret offering dinner shows. These would undoubtedly be in French though.
We soon found ourselves at the Gare St. Paul at the north limits of Vieux Lyon so we crossed the Saône River on another pedestrian suspension bridge, this one being the St. Vincent passerelle.
Very close by on the water was an unusual building that only had real windows and doors on one narrow edge, while the rest of the building was window and doorless. But it was covered with a mural adding doors and windows with historical figures from Lyon painted in various scenes around the building.
These included Antoine de Saint-Exupéry with the Little Prince on a balcony and August and Louis Lumière projecting a movie on another balcony. There is a lot of street art, graffiti and tagging all over the Croix-Rousse. There is a bit of a hill climb to get to see some of the views of Lyon to the south so we got our exercise rings closed easily. Although there is a potential for some nice views to the south, there was significant haze in the air, and a combination of vegetation, chimneys and antennas obstructed many of those potential views.
We did wind our way back down the hill through a few questionable passageways through what could be described as tenements but we fortunately never encountered any questionable characters in those passageways.
We eventually found ourselves back at the place de Terreaux seeing the other side of the Hôtel de Villa and Opera House.
We found ourselves having lunch at the l’Épicerie de Ginette just down the alley from our apartment hotel for a tartine and beefsteak with fries.
Both were hearty lunches and with cider, that lead to well deserved naps. We also did some laundry since the apartment has a washer dryer all-in-one machine.
We wandered back out to check out another place for the Pink Praline torts, but it was closed for the day. We ended up having some noodle bowls at a Chinese restaurant near our hotel which were just the thing to top us up without overdoing it.
As we finished eating, our son John was arriving at the airport so we wandered down to the Bellecour square to meet him. It turned out he had met someone at the airport who happened to be headed the same way home, so John was able to get a ride straight to the Bellecour square without needing to figure out the metro. He snuck up on us as we were looking at a map of the region outside the metro entrance.
We took John back to the noodle place because he hadn’t had dinner on the flight, and we just relaxed on the sidewalk drinking wine while he had his dinner. From there it was a very short walk back to the apartment hotel.
Tomorrow, we’ll do some exploring with John and try out our skill as local guides.
