It was a dark and stormy morning!

Saturday, 2 January 2016

Hello!

Wow, what a day!  Today was scheduled for an all-day rain, and it looks like that’s just about all it did!  Our day started by taking the shopping caddy with all of our miscellaneous and extraneous goods (the Minion bank, the Minion nightlight, the Minion Kleenex, scarves, shirts, cards, calendars and our latest French road atlas) to La Poste to send back to the U.S.  (It was SO dark, even at 9 a.m. because of the rain clouds!)  Of course we were early [typical! – R] … and had to wait in a downpour for about 10 minutes before the door was opened.  However, the benefit of being the first to arrive is that we really had La Poste all to ourselves!  We managed to cram everything into a large postal “if-it-fits-it-ships” box, and it is now on its way to our neighbors Bob and Stew.  SO nice to know that we will easily fall within the Ryan Air luggage requirements, that’s for sure!  The French road atlas must have weighed several pounds all on its own.

Back to the flat, to discuss our plans for the day.We had intended to track down the Traboules in Croix Rousse, across the Saone, but with the weather so wet, we changed our minds, and decided to spend an “indoor” day at the Musee des Confluences.  We had driven past it on Wednesday, coming back from Nathalie’s, and the building itself is spectacular; very, very modern, but really quite beautiful.  I was thinking that maybe we should wait until Tuesday (they are closed on Monday) so that kids would be back in school and parents would be back at work, but the prospect of a nice indoor day was too good to pass up.

Outside and under museum

Looking from the main entryway

Looking down from 2nd floor

 

So!  Out into the rain (wearing our black shoes now, as tennies have WAY too many holes in them) and over to the C3 bus to the T1 tramway.  Finally, off the T1 at the museum stop.  Even though we weren’t there at opening time (they open at 10 am on Saturday, and it was probably closer to 11 by the time we got there!) the line really wasn’t too long.  We probably had to wait about 15 minutes to get through security and get our tickets; not a problem.  

First, I have to say that while we have seen some interesting architecture around the world, this may have been our first deconstructivist building ever. [Just what does deconstructivist mean? – R]  As that source of all knowledge, Wikipedia says:

The Musée des Confluences is a science centre and anthropology museum which opened on 20 December 2014 in the 2nd arrondissement of Lyon, (Rhône), France. Presqu'île at the confluence of the Rhône and the Saône, adjacent to Autoroute A7, and comprises part of a larger redevelopment project of the Confluence quarter of Lyon. The deconstructivist architectural design, said to resemble a floating crystal cloud of stainless steel and glass, was created by the Austrian firm Coop Himmelb(l)au.

Menhir from temporary exhibit

Knife blades and gold jewelry

Pyrenees jade

It is located at the southern tip of the

Actually, that’s really not a bad description of what we found!  The museum houses both temporary exhibits as well as a permanent collection, and we were very surprised at some of the things that we found.  There is a temporary exhibition encompassing “wealth and luxury” in the Neolithic age. 

From Machine exhibit

More interesting machines ...

There were examples of jewelry, weapons as well as a wonderful menhir from Brittany.  As I told Robert, the problem is that now we have museums that we need to see in Carcassonne, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nantes.  Obviously, they will never end!

There was also an interesting exhibit about man and “the machine” starting literally about the time that the industrial revolution was taking place, and encompassing such things as trains and train stations to airplanes, radios and televisions.  There was a very strong “fine art” component, mixing flat art – oils and pastels, with sculptured pieces made out of machine parts. 

On the permanent exhibit floor, we found some wonderful displays about the rise of homo sapiens as well as the corresponding animals, birds and insects.  This collection even covered the start of writing, and had a small but very nice Cuneiform collection.  

All in all, a very good place to visit, especially on a rainy day! 

My tarte citron

R's cheese quiche

We covered the temporary exhibits on the first floor before heading upstairs to the lunch restaurant.  (They have a formal brasserie, but it looked to us like we would have had to go outside to get to it, and we didn’t really want to stand in line at security all over again!)  There we were able to get quiche – R had cheese, and I had onion – and I followed mine by a tarte citron, which was great!  Then it was back to the second floor, and the permanent exhibits.  

We finally finished up around 3:30 pm and headed back to the flat to regroup. 

Outside, 4th floor

Looking down interior staircase

Entering mammal exhibit

Do love that building!

Heading down toward the confluence

Swans and me at the confluence of Rhone & Saone!

However, it being Saturday today, and Sunday tomorrow, I knew that most of the grocery stores would be closed tomorrow, and we needed to get something in for dinner tomorrow night.  So, I walked back across the Saone to the Presqu’ile Market and picked up some fresh pasta and sauce, which we will have for dinner tomorrow.  (I’m thinking Indian possibly for tonight!) 

So, for the moment’s that’s about it!  Tomorrow hopefully will be better weather, and we will give the Croix Rousse area another try!

Lots of love,

m

xxx