We’ve reached Lyon!

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Happy Christmas Eve Eve!

Our new home in Lyon!

Me in the full kitchen!

We have made it to Lyon, and we absolutely LOVE our apartment!! But, to start with this morning…We woke about 7 a.m. and started getting organized right away.  We had to totally repack both bags, as there was so little space in our room that things got into quite a muddle.  So…we repacked everything, and wonder of wonders, everything actually fit, included my Stuart Minion Bank!  Yeah!!  We had breakfast and were out of the hotel just a few minutes after 8 a.m.  We walked down the hill and to the Luxembourg station of the RER, where we got tickets to the “Orlyval” which is the RER and special train to Orly Airport.  Not a problem anywhere.  Train to Antony station came quickly, and from there, you literally walk right on to the Orlyval … another train that just goes to Orly airport.  Very convenient!

Living room; we look directly out on the Saone River!

And Clothilde set up a tree for us!

From there, we needed to find the Avis counter to pick up rental car.  No problems there either, although it did take some help from the staff to actually find our particular vehicle in the parking garage.  We walked and walked and walked…good thing it was morning, that’s all I can say!  We finally found our VW car, and the luggage fit perfectly into the trunk, which was fortunate.  Then, we were out of the airport and heading toward the A6 to Lyon.

There was quite a bit of traffic headed in that direction.  In fact, when we stopped a couple of times for potty stops or food breaks, the designated areas were absolutely jam packed with people heading south.  I’m very certain it’s Christmas related.  Fortunately, while we got a few spritzes along the way, for the most part, the weather was mid to high 50’s and overcast. 

Good and BIG salads!

Always helps with a bit of Cotes du Rhone!

No problems!

We had told Clothilde that we would be at the apartment at 4 p.m. and we made it with room to spare – about 3:35 p.m. actually.  The most wonderful thing, though, was right across the street from our new home was a huge parking area built down along the riverside – and we were able to find a great spot!  That made moving our luggage into the flat very, very easy!

Clothilde is a truly wonderful landlady!  The heat was on in the flat, and there was even a wonderful 4’ tall faux Christmas tree, all lit and decorated and waiting for us!  Along with a stocking on the mantle!  Truly, how wonderful is that??  Clothilde went over the instructions for the flat – which is just like its photos on HomeAway, and we absolutely LOVE it!  The ceilings are at least 15’ tall, and there is plenty of room to sit and relax. The television gets a bazillion channels (okay, maybe not quite that many, but close…), the bed is very comfortable, and there is lots of room for “stuff” storage.  I know we will be incredibly happy here for the next TWO weeks!  YIPPEE!!  SOOOOOOO looking forward to just kicking back for a few days and doing nothing at all!!!

After Clothilde left, we headed back to the car to return it to the Perrache railroad station. 

R's super thin pizza, which was GREAT!

My tagliatelle, which was OK

That wasn’t too hard to find, but boy, finding where to leave the rental car and return the keys was tricky!  At one point, I parked near the station, and R went out and got directions on what to do.  We managed well, and dropped the keys off at Avis with a very nice young man who was very helpful.

Then, we headed back into the train station to see about transit cards.  I have been Googling everywhere trying to find out if we could get weekly passes, similar to what we like to get in Paris.   And no information!!  So, we very painstakingly worked out way to the transit office, and explained to the young man what we wanted.  Well…all I can say is, it’s even slicker than Paris!  The young man was able to sell us cards, like the Navigo Decouverte, but really just in credit-card format, as well as take our photos to put on them!  Wow!  We are now good for the rest of the week, and next weekend, we will just “top up” our cards for our second week!  Can’t get much better than that!

From the train station we caught the metro to Hotel de Ville, and after walking over the bridge over the Saone, we were home!  It looks like lots and lots of neat areas to explore, but at that point, we were both hungry and tired.  Hungry won out!

After putting everything away and getting organized, we walked down the street to a little Italian pizza place.  R ordered pizza Marguerita (plain cheese pizza) and I ordered tagliatelle with pesto.  Let me only say that Robert won!  The pizza was SO thin, and was spectacular!  My pasta was rather “ho-hum” but we finished off a bottle of Cotes du Rhone with it, which was excellent.

Area behind our flat

From the restaurant (even though I wanted to go back to Bellecoeur to look at the ferris wheel and the lights, R was just too tired.) So, back to the flat, and R is sleeping now on the couch in the living room, as I write.  As soon as I get this done, I am definitely heading to bed too!  I’ve got some serious sleeping to make up, and hopefully tonight I will be able to start! 

Tomorrow we have to get grocery shopping, so that we have food in the flat for Christmas Day (even though we did reserve a place to have dinner), and I’d really like to get to Fourviere for Christmas Eve mass.  We’ll see!

So!  More later, from your Lyon correspondent!

Lots of love,

m