Lyon

Here, amongst all of these Europeans who have a language other than English as their mother tongue, who speak in lovely accents and sometimes fumble their cute Europeanized English words, I feel like an idiot speaking clean American English. I think I sound dumb! Yet I'm the one who speaks it fluently! Everyone sounds more worldly when they speak with an accent. Maybe I should pretend to have one. Unfortunately, the only one I can mimic almost perfectly is Russian - any attempts I make at other accents just sound...Russian.

Two weekends ago I went to Lyon, France with my flatmate, Nora, and her friend from work, Alberto, from Spain. It was only about 2 hours from Geneva! I loved Lyon. I fell in love with it immediately and couldn't stop talking about how much I liked it. I kept oohing and ahhing. What a perfect city! It has everything that's good about Paris without the big city craziness. I decided that it's like Paris in that it has great public transportation, is very youthful because it has a good university, and felt like it had a lot of potential in terms of museums, theaters, art, etc - lots of things to do. On the other hand, it has so much of what Paris doesn't - a more comfortable, walkable city center with warm, open people, a great old part of town, and overall, real character. I loved Paris but I always felt like wherever I took the subway in Paris, I would come out and the neighborhood would look almost the same. I love being able to find cute neighborhoods, hidden cafes, hole-in-the-wall shops, etc., and Paris just felt so uniform to me. But in Lyon, the city has so many contrasts. The new town had a giant ferris wheel and a large shopping center, giant fountains and theaters. On the other hand, the old town seemed almost like Italy, with its winding little ruelles (small roads) sprinkled with busy cafes and small shops. Also, Lyon is supposed to be the gastronomic capital of France. Mmm. Overall, I'm a big fan.


pretty buildings

cute street in the old town - beef street

And the cathedral - oh, the cathedral. From the outside it looks pretty boring, actually. It was built not long after Sacre Coeur, so it's pretty modern (mid to second half of the 19th century, I think). When I came in, though, I was taken aback. The inside of the cathedral is completely gilded and covered and gold-tinged mosaics. LOOK:





Lyon, what a charming place.