Lyon, France : Part One

A few weeks ago Jim and I spent the weekend in Lyon. I've been putting off this post because this was the first trip we took after I got to Switzerland and of course I took a million pictures.

So here we go....

Lyon is located here:

It's France's third largest city in population but second in urban area. Geneva is about 1 hour 45 min to the north-east by car or train. We took the TGV (train) and it was pretty great. The cost was 44.-CHF per person going and 33.-CHF coming back. Not bad for going to a whole other country.

No trip is ever complete without snacks.

We left Geneva around 3pm and were at our hotel in Lyon shortly after 5. We stayed at Hotel de La Cité, which was given good reviews on Trip Advisor and was in our price range. Since neither one of us had been to Lyon we thought this was a good location, and while it was not directly in downtown Lyon, a bus stop was right out front and it was across from one of the entrances to the Parc de la Tête d'or (basically the Central Park of Lyon).

obligatory room shot

obligatory bathroom shot

Turned on the TV and this came on

view of the Rhône from our hotel room

After some brief relaxing I consulted the concierge for directions downtown and a recommendation/reservation for dinner. After a 10 minute ride on the bus we arrived just on the other side of the Saône river. It was raining earlier and just started to clear up.

We went to this restaurant; La Machonnerie. It is located in the old part of Lyon, with small winding streets made of cobblestone, and almost no room for a car.

I can't remember what we ordered, it was some kind of tasting menu. Lyon is famous for its food and there are a ridiculous amount of Boucheries and Brasseries. I believe our soup course came with some fresh ground pepper.

I asked Jim to pepper my soup

And of course it wouldn't be France without cheese for dessert, I can't even tell you what is on this plate - mainly because the server told us in French - but I'm pretty sure it translated to "tasty, delicious, even better than the last one". So we tried them all. That is actually allowed, they put this tray at your table and you help yourself for a while, and then they come over and bring it to another table.

And after the cheese we rolled ourselves back to the hotel. Stay tuned for part two where we find Jim's favorite restaurant EVER!