Brucatos in France and Greece: A craft fair across the street!

Sunday, December 27, 2015

Hello!

Robert had been streaming KUSC Christmas classical music for the past couple of days, and last night he decided to see if he could find me a football game to watch. And, he did! Don’t know how, but we were able to stream College Football games – I saw Marshall beat UConn, and fell asleep to Washington State beating Miami. Very odd, though – instead of commercials, it just says “ESPN on commercial break.” Hmmm…not a bad idea! Wonder if there is any chance he’ll be able to find an NFL game or two today?? (As it turns out, WatchESPN is not an option that works in EUROPE! UNFAIR!)

We awoke to a very foggy morning – in fact, even though the Saone river is right across the street, we couldn’t even see it!

I do like hats...

And of course, jewelry!

However, what we did see were people setting up tables and tents, right across the street! How convenient is that?? The sign that went with them said that it was the weekly art/handicraft market, so of course I wanted to take a look.

So, out about 10:00 or so and very much enjoyed our walk up and down the tables. There were several tables with wonderful hats … but R reminds me that I got “my” hat in Montmartre, so I couldn’t possibly need another one so soon! (Men!!) There were aquarelles and paintings, and lots of jewelry. There were marionettes and doll clothes, as well as a wonderful table of metal trees – all branches – that reminded me of bonsai, and were quite beautiful. (The prices were beautiful too … somewhere in the 1700€ to 2200€ range, so we decided we could do without!)

We did buy some ear rings, and a small ceramic dish … and now I have all week to think about what I should have gotten, so we can go back next Sunday and get it!! (One of the benefits of remaining in place, even for a little while!)

Roman odeon used for music and rhetoric

Traces of ancient fresco

Lovely odeon

From there we made our way back to the funicular, but this time, instead of heading to Fourviere, we took the other funicular to the Roman musee. Robert says he remembers the architecture of the building, but I certainly don’t! I know we were there before, a few years ago, the first time we visited Lyon, but I have no memory of it whatsoever! (The benefit of getting older!) We first came upon the archeological park that contains both the Odeon (place built like an amphitheatre, but used for rhetorical and musical performances) and the amphitheatre, which seated 11,000 at one time. As it was still fairly early, there weren’t too many people around, and we enjoyed a good look around.

Then, into the museum! We were provided with audioguides, and we were able to make our way down the sloping ramp through various the various periods of Lyon’s occupation, starting with the Neolithic.

Me in odeon

Fourviere Basilica in the fog!

Lyon today is the second largest city in France, but (according to the information, which possibly could have a local bias …) back in the Roman days, Lyon was at the confluence of everything – the Rhone and the Saone – and served as a major Roman site for getting goods up and down France. (Saying that, I looked up populations in France, and Paris was listed somewhere around the 12,000,000 person mark. Lyon, the second city, was listed at a little over 2,000,000 – which is quite a difference. The next largest city, Marseille, is a little over 1,700,000.)

So…back to the museum! The port of Lyon was the site of several shipwrecks, and over the years, archeologists have been bringing up and restoring various artifacts that have been found. Additionally, as various construction projects were about to take place within the city, a great deal of emergency archeology has also been done to preserve things before they could be paved over into parking lots and the like.

Amphitheatre seating 11,000

Liked the fog rolling in over the amphitheatre

Several absolutely stunning mosaics have been unearthed, as late as the 1990’s, and research continues trying to find the remains of Lyon’s circus, the home of their chariot races. (The races have been written about in ancient literature, but so far, their actual venue has not been discovered!) Wouldn’t you love to be living on top of that?

Finally walked our way down to the bottom of the sloping walkway, and elevatored back up to the top to head out and down the hill. Lovely views of Fourviere Basilica. In fact, the museum is really very close to Fourviere, so not sure why they even bothered to put an additional funicular stop on the route!

So…we headed down the hill and kept going until we reached the metro, Green line, and took it to Bellcoeur, the heart of the city. (Home of the big Ferris wheel, which we still haven’t tried, but the day is still young!) Stopped off for a quick sandwich, and then headed back to Perrache Station. There, we recharged our transport cards for next week (successfully, I might add!) and found the Tram 1 stop.

We are heading to Saint Affrique to visit Nathalie, Pascal, Julia and Nathan on the 29^th (Tuesday?) and wanted to find the rental car location. (We will stay overnight there, and then head back to Lyon on the 30^th.) It will be GREAT to see them!

Remains of a processional chariot!

Lovely statute recovered from the river

I do like mosaics

Identified the rental car spot, got off the tram and crossed the tracks, and caught one going in the other direction. Our plan was to take that to the intersection of the C3 bus to get back to the flat. However, R spotted an open Casino Market, so we interrupted our journey yet again, to get off and pick up a few remaining groceries.

Really liked this decorated bowl

More mosaics

Detail of mosaic floor

[Here, I need to input information about a terrific store next to the Casino market -- called SMEG - an Italian appliance manufacturer. WOW! I feel very much in love with the designs and colors of the toasters and coffee pots in the window (and I don't even like coffee!) but when I saw the refrigerators ... oh, my! Turns out that the red Fiat is actually a refrigerator! And I want one!!!]

Loaded down now, we went back and caught the T1 again, and it was absolutely jammed with people! Made it to the C3 intersection, and were able to pick up the bus very easily. However, it turned out that Metro inspectors were all over the bus, checking people’s tickets, so we weren’t able to get seats for the first few minutes … all the while with the bus taking on more and more people! I thought the bus was going to burst! Finally enough people got off in the center part of town so that the rest of us were able to breathe! Yeah!! Back to the flat about 4 p.m. and hopefully, we’re in for the night!

So! That’s about all the news from this end for the moment! More tomorrow!