Lyon Day 1

Lew and I had a very slow morning and only woke up just after 9am when Magali and Nick had already gone to work. I spent some time doing some study and once Lew finally dragged himself out of bed he did some work for Smartspace. Nick had sent us a list of things to do in Lyon so at 1pm we dragged ourselves away from the computer screen and into town. Leaving the apartment we were SO surprised at how chilly it was today and contemplated going back to put some more clothing on - mainly merinos but we figured we would be ducking in and out of warm shops anyway so we carried on. We were so thankful that their apartment is close to town meaning we didn’t have to use public transport and could walk all day. We walked the main street next to the Lyon City Hall and visited quite a few shoe shops along the way as I am looking for some good work shoes. We honestly didn't have much of a plan but I had decided I wanted to find some scrubs somewhere which I could wear for my nursing exam next week so I could feel a bit more in the zone than wearing normal clothing. We visited two different costume shops - Fiesta Magic & Feta but all of the doctors scrubs were horrible material and looked tachy (haha wasn't meaning that to be a pun!), not to mention they were expensive. Giving up Lew had told me that he wanted to walk up to the hill called Fourvière hill where we could possibly see over the city. Whilst there wasn’t much of a view from up here due to the low cloud we found lots of hip clothing stores and cute homeware stores instead. We were surprised to also find a lot of secondhand clothing stores but I can’t stand the smell of them and there was nothing worthy of dragging back across to London. Despite having a late breakfast it was 3pm and we were both feeling a bit peckish. Lew spotted a place called Bintje & Zoet in Vieux Lyon (old Lyon) that did cones of fries and he was convinced that the French do excellent fries and we must try them. So for €3.90 ($6.80 NZD) we got a very large cone full of fries and our choice of a sauce in which there were far to many options and we just went for the easy tomato sauce. We stood outside the shop eating enough off the top of the cone so we could continue walking without loosing half of them and I watched in slow motion as this ballsy pigeon takes off from the ground and appears as though it was trying to land on me to steal our food! Clearly it’s done this before but it was in such slow motion I was able to use my body as a shield protecting our precious fries! We quickly began walking away and it followed us for a bit until it realised we were too smart for it and there were probably better targets than us! Somewhere all amongst this we came across the Lyon Cathedral and also admired the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière up on the hill behind us which we decided we would walk up to tomorrow. Old Lyon is one of Europe’s most extensive Renaissance neighbourhoods that covers a distance of 4.2 square kilometres at the bottom of Fourvière Hill and contains three distinct regions Saint Jean, Saint Paul and Saint Georges. The Saint Jean quarter focused on political and religious power in the Middle Ages, Saint Paul gained it’s name from the church with it’s Romanesque lantern tower and large spire that marks the section’s northern extremity. Last but not least is the area of Saint Georges which was initially where the silk weavers settled in the 16th century before moving to the  Croix Rousse hill in the 19th century. Basically everything in this area is fantastic to walk around and despite being absolutely freezing since the weather told us it was 2 degrees but felt like -1 degrees we really enjoyed it. Also close by in the 1st Arrondissement are lots of shops that recycle things and make them into items again. We came across this one store called Monde éthique that had wallets and bags made out of old bike tyres, belts made out of old fireman hoses and recycles cotton T-shirts and shoes. The owner must have noticed my NZ beanie since on the way out he asked if we were from NZ and then proceeded to tell us he had been to Christchurch. We spoke with him for a little while and once again were pleased that someone had mentioned our home town on their travels to our country!

By 4pm it was starting to get a little darker and colder so we thought we should head back to the apartment. We didn't know what the plans were for dinner but we stopped off at the supermarket to buy some dairy free margarine so I could make chocolate self saucing pudding tonight. We had a wee bit of time to ourselves back home where we could catch up on some computer work before Nick and Magali got home. Once they did get back at about 6-6.30pm we decided that we would head out for dinner tonight and then tomorrow Lew and I would cook tacos before heading to the Ice Hockey game. Since Lyon has been crowned the food capital of France and also the world it took a long time for Nick and Magali to decided on a french restaurant to take us too. Whilst we looked through all the options we snacked on peanuts, corn chips, pretzels and pistatio nuts since I'm trying to get rid of some of our food before we leave! They decided on a place called Bouchon de la bourse and booked us a table for 8.30pm. We had to catch the metro in order to get to this place so we all walked the short distance to the metro stop, buying a couple of tickets for €3.60 ($6.30 NZD) we followed Nick and Magali like wee sheep getting on and off the we were told to. As we got off at the exit to walk to the restaurant Nick got an email back saying the reservation had been declined but we thought we would head there and check it out anyways. As we entered the restaurant Nick had to use some impressive French to explain he had a booking and there were a lot more words said but ended in us walking back out the door we came in. Lew and I asked for a translation since we didn't really know what had just happened but it turns out they were full and he didn't have a reservation (which we knew) and the waiter recommended we go next door to a place called Le Dandy instead. So a couple of doors down we entered yet another restaurant which looked pretty good also and they had a table of 4 for us. Magali did all the talking this time and even kindly asked the waitress what they could do dairy free for me. Lew and I were really enjoying not having to worry about our lack of French and everything we were unsure about could be translated for us! We ended up getting a starter dish called duck foie gras with gingerbread which was certainly something we wouldn't have tried if we were by ourselves! The platter was some homemade gingerbread, a kinda pate like substance made of duck liver, and some cooked duck. Before Nick and Magali told us what the pate like stuff contained they made us taste it. It was rather strange with a yuck aftertaste and wouldn't be something I would eat everyday but was an experience - they wanted us to try snails also but luckily this restaurant didn't serve those. Once we had both tried it they told us that foie gras is defined as the liver of a duck or goose (usually duck) that has been fattened by force feeing it with corn with a feeding tube in a process known as gavage. The technique of gavage dates as far back as 2500 BC when the ancient Egyptians began keeping birds for food and deliberately fattened the birds through force-feeding. Foie gras is part of the gastronomical heritage of France but production is banned in the USA since the process of force feeding the birds had animal welfare concerns. So I am glad we didn't know this before we tried it! 

The next course both Magali and I ordered the Duck confit, Nick got the lamb and Lew had a large steak with a side of potato gratin. The food was rather impressive and tasted amazing. They also ordered a bottle of red wine for us all to share and I said I would drink what the majority of the table wanted since I need to get more used to red wine. It certainly wasn't as bad as some of the others I have tried and was rather sweet and "oaky". We talked to Magali about her upbringing and when parents begin to introduce wine to their children since it is so intertwined into the French culture. She said that she was about 8-9 years old when she first started drinking wine but it wasn't until she was about 13 years old that she began to enjoy it. We compared this to our NZ upbringing when boys are introduced to beer by their dads and Lew and Nick decided that they were probably about Yr 11 at school or 14 years old. I lost track of everything else we talked about and before we knew it the time was almost 10pm and we still had chocolate self saucing pudding to bake back home! The bill came to a whooping €117 ($204 NZD) and splitting it in half made it still take the title of out most expensive meal yet in our travels. Nick and Magali have this really cool thing where their work pays for their lunch and they have €8.90 ($15.40 NZD) per day in the form of vouchers they can spend anywhere they want. But you don’t have to spend it in lunch so they paid for their half of the bill with these tickets.It was such a nice experience and we didn't realise it had been such a long time since we saw Nick since him and Magali have been together for two years now and they met when she was out in NZ staying with Nicks parents! We got the waitress to take a photo of us and then caught an Uber back to the apartment where I straight away got the pudding in the oven. Thankfully I had pre-prepared everything so it was just a matter of throwing it into a bowl and into the oven. We watched a few of Lews videos from our trip and the pudding finally came out of the oven at 11pm. I contemplated doing a double batch since lew and I had been demolishing the entire thing between two of us and now we had to stretch it out to four. We were all bursting at the seams from dinner and our salty snacks before it so I was pleased that I didn't double it! We all said goodnight at about midnight, Lew and I were very pleased we didn't have to get up for work in the morning but felt bad that Nick and Magali had had two late nights in a row! Goodnight xo