Tourism is hard.

I went to Lyon for the day Saturday. It was beautiful, but a very long day. 

We left Dijon at 7:30 in the morning. I got to watch the sunrise over the Arc de Triomphe. And then slept on the bus for 2 hours to Lyon. 

The Rhône River flows through the city. There are bridges everywhere to get across the river. This one was neat. 

Lyon was founded in 43BC as a Roman colony. Its name was originally "Lugdunum," or "Hill of Crows". Legend has it that when the first stone was placed to start construction on the city, a huge black cloud of crows blotted out the sun. The soldiers took it as a sign from God that a huge, magnificent city would one day be here. Today, Lyon has over 1.5 million habitants. It's the second largest city in the country, after Paris. 

This was our first stop. The Basilica Notre Dame de Fourvière. Waaaaaaaaay up there. Apparently it's about a 4km hike, at a very steep incline. A lot of people who come here to make pilgrimage do it on their hands and knees. It was tough, but we made it. 

Look, Jason. Topiary. Ha. This is in the garden that we walked through to get to the basilica. 

The statue of the Virgin Mary on the top of the basilica. She's unique in the fact that she's covered in gold. The little bit of sunshine we got made her shine beautifully.

In the courtyard around the church are a bunch of monuments like this, describing the various stations of the cross. This one is Station 12, where Jesus dies on the cross. 

This basilica was built in the 1600s, without a penny of aid from the Catholic church or the State. Every little bit of funding for this building was from donations from the citizens and nobles of Lyon and the surrounding areas. It was built on the base of 2 wishes to the virgin Mary: to be saved from the Plague (which was rampant), and to be saved from an invading army. Both wishes were granted, and the church has continued to grow and be repaired ever since. 

One of the lions that are everywhere. 

This is a carving depicting the human condition. The people on both sides are trying to find their way to the Virgin, who symbolizes salvation. The rainbow above them is the Holy Spirit. 

This angel represents one of the wishes that founded the basilica. He is a warrior, and saved the city from the invading forces. 

This angel represents the other wish. He's the curer of illness. 

This is the altar inside the church. Apparently this is the first time that a church has ever had the Virgin on the altar. Normally, that place of honour is reserved for the cross. In placing the Virgin on the altar, she's effectively being revered as higher than God. 

The incredibly ornate ceilings in the chapel. Click to see a bigger picture. Absolutely awesome. 

The altar itself, and the front of the chapel. Wow. The basilica is enormous. 

Tile mosaics of major biblical events covered the walls of the chapel. The tiles were tiny, so the detail is awesome. Click to see a bigger picture. 

Some of the tiles are golden, and catch the light in incredible ways. This is a close-up of the one above. 

Saint Michael killing the dragon. He stands on top of the basilica. 

As we were walking down from the church, I saw this little guy on the stairs. Couldn't have been more than 5 years old. Adamant that he's a big boy, and that he can make it down the stairs all by himself with his sticks. So cute!

A small view of the Lyon skyline. What a big city!

"The Silver Cow" restaurant. Sigh. I miss Alberta beef. 

This is a Lyon specialty. The "traboule". These are little corridors that link streets to each other. They're everywhere. My friend Breanne is staying in Lyon, and has apparently done a traboule tour through the city. Dijon has one traboule, apparently. I'm going to find it. 

"Cow Street". Apparently, cattle would be herded through here centuries ago on market days. 

This is the coolest-looking restaurant I've seen yet. I tried to go there to eat, but it was closed for renovations. It was a shame, because the menu looked awesome. 

This was lunch instead. "Crepe Lyonnais". It was filled with cheese and sausage from Lyon. Not fantastic. And there was a hair in the salad. But the little cafe was charming, and the ladies who owned it were incredibly nice, and chatted with me the whole time I was there. So I still win. 

This is Guignol, the official mascot of Lyon. The story goes that there was a "dentist" (man who pulled teeth for a living) who used to come to the city regularly to help the citizens of Lyon with their tooth-related maladies. He'd set up in a huge square, and people would line up to have their teeth extracted, or watch other unfortunate souls have work done. The dentist understood that his customers needed a  bit of cheering up, so he invented this little fellow. Guignol would tell the patrons stories about Lyon, or jokes, or what have you. Eventually, there were more people coming to watch Guignol than there were patients for the dentist! 

A chicha café. I walked past it twice before I realized what it was. 

This freaked me out a bit. This is on a board that shows the menu for a restaurant. It's set like a table, complete with goat-hoof knife and fork (on the other side). 

Yes, this is an actual C-3PO suit from the original Star Wars trilogy. There's a cinema museum in Lyon. I geeked out a bit when I saw this guy on the street! Of course, I had to go inside. 

Gizmo! He was a lot bigger than the movies would have you believe. There was also a robot from "I, Robot" with Will Smith, and one of the enormous spiders they used in Jumanji. Pretty neat. 

The buildings here are very pretty. They're coloured like this because Lyon is in the southern part of the country, and they're trying to imitate the colours of the buildings farther to the south.

 This is St. John's Cathedral. Currently under construction.

A street-side crepe vendor mixing batter. As I took this picture, he started singing. Perfect. 

On the wall outside an "Irish" pub in Old Lyon. I love that there's "No drinking outside unless seated." As I took this picture, a fellow wandered out of the pub with a pint of what looked like Guinness and sat down on the sidewalk to drink it. 

An incredibly cool old motorcycle. I watched a guy drive up on it, and then about five older fellows meandered out of the bar across the street to talk about it with the owner. 

This is the Basilica. The sun came out for a bit, and the Virgin shone. 

These are some Lyon specialties. On the left are "bouchons," or corks. Restaurants in Lyon are called bouchons. Apparently the term comes from an old term for a twisted bunch of straw. Restaurant owners would paint these bundles on their signs to show that their buildings served food to travellers, and the tradition carried on from there. The candies here have a dark chocolate shell with a sweet hazelnut/praline/liqueur centre. 

On the right are red pralines. They're almonds coated with a red vanilla-flavoured candy shell. Patisseries all over the city make pies and tarts out of them. Sweet, but delicious. 

An alternate method of transport in the city. This guy looks really bored. 

Another neat restaurant in Old Lyon. The old city is a UNESCO-recognized world heritage site. 

We crossed a bridge to the newer part of the city to see some of the "trompe-oeils," or optical illusions, that were painted on some of the walls there. Only the right half of this building actually has balconies. The left half is a mural. Click to enlarge. 

Another mural. This one depicts some famous people who were born in Lyon. 

The chef is Paul Bocuse, the founder of the Bocuse d'Or cooking competition. He was born in Lyon, and every year the Bocuse d'Or competition is held in Lyon. I missed it by about a week.

Eee! My favourite French author (and one of my favourite authors ever), Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. He's holding hands with his most famous character, the Little Prince. I adore that book!

The Fresco of Famous Lyonnais People. This mural is over six stories tall. Even the roof is an illusion, though it looks incredibly real! I can't imagine how long it must have taken to create.

The Lumière Brothers, the inventors of moving pictures. 

I really like that book. 

Church of Scientology. I had hoped that Europeans were more sensible than this. No one is perfect. 

Our group of tourists. Until I took this picture, I had no idea how silly we looked. 

This fountain was made by the same man who designed and created the Statue of Liberty. It shows the origin of horses, mighty creatures created from the earth itself. 

City Hall. Gilded and incredibly ornate.

The opera house. I never cease to be amazed by the sheer enormity of buildings here. 

Traditionally, there are nine muses. Here you can see that there are only eight on the opera house. For aesthetic reasons (nine is an odd number), one had to be left out. 

Real coffee! Unfortunately, it was late in the afternoon by the time I got here, and bathrooms in the city were sketchy at best. I decided it wasn't the best idea in the world to get a coffee. Sigh. 

An enormous ferris wheel in the middle of the city. I rode it, and got an awesome view of the city's skyline. 

The French consider themselves to be like the rooster. Proud, scrappy, and loud. The golden rooster appears on all national sports uniforms. This is on a roof somewhere. I couldn't find the building.

An enormous statue of Louis XIV, the Golden King. This is in an open place in the middle of the city. 

A random band in the middle of the city. These guys were awful, but they gave it their all. 

This picture is for Jason. One of our favourite card games. Yes, this is the french version.

Our guide described the main shopping area in Lyon as a mini Champs Élysées. The Champs Élysées is a famous avenue in Paris, where the biggest names in fashion and style set up shop. These are some of the stores I drooled over.  

This was a café! I was floored. They had premium ice cream and coffee. Two of my favourite things. The place was packed, though. I didn't get a chance to get anything to eat. 

But then I found a street-side crepe vendor, and all was well. This one was full of Nutella. So good. 

A fountain in the middle of downtown. This was the meeting place where we spent half an hour waiting for a guy who got lost, and nearly got left behind. It was the end of the day, we were all tired and sore from walking for 10 hours on cobblestones, and we were getting rained on. It was not the greatest way to end the day, but the guy eventually showed up and we all got to go home. 

This guy was awesome. He was doing paintings with spray paint. He lit the paint on fire to help the stuff on the paper dry faster. Quite a showman. 

These are some of the paintings he had already finished. Pretty impressive. 

This, unfortunately, was supper. A ham and cheese sandwich. But not just any cheese. Comté! A Burgundian specialty. I gobbled down my sandwich and promptly fell asleep on the bus. I sept like a baby Saturday night. 

I'm glad I finally got these pictures up here. I still have a lot of downsizing to to as far as the other pictures on here go, but I'm on my way. 

It's late, and I still have some school work to do before my head hits the pillow. Thanks for your patience while I got this picture storage thing straightened away. I'll post again soon, I promise.

À bientôt!