Lyon

Lyon:  Filthy, smelly, ugly.

There is litter and graffiti everywhere.  The people are generally not friendly at all.  Maybe living in such a place makes you grumpy!  In hindsight, the time would have been better spent touring the Loire Valley, but you live and learn. 

As far as sight seeing goes, there's not a lot.  As I said - it's an ugy city!

Today I went to see a silk weaver's house.  Unfortunately I arrived too late for the tour, but they had some of the originally machinery used on display.  The gift shop was largely disappointing, and grossly over priced.  There was some nice silk fabrics, but for the quality, also over priced.  Beautiful silk and wool scarves, etc, but again, no better than what you can buy in any store.  Except for the really expensive stuff!

Then it was across to Vieux Lyon, the original part of the city, which has a beautiful basillica at the top, as well as ruins of a Roman theatre.  I can't get over the amazing architecture here - the work involved is just phenomenal.  The stone for this basillica was imported from Italy.  Getting it to the top of the hill wouldn't have been a small task either - it's quite steep to the top of the hill.   Thankfully, these days there is a train going up there...

The Roman ruins were interesting, and these, along with one other theatre on the other side of the river, is all that's left of the Roman settlement here.  Not too exciting, when I'm heading to Italy next!

Duck is big in France - you can get it anywhere, cooked many different ways, and for reasonable prices.  In Paris I had what I think was cured duck breast, with gizzards - which were actually quite nice, if I could have forgotten what it actually was that I was eating.  Today I had duck breast - they seem to serve it quite rare.  It doesn't beat the duck they used to have at Windy Point though, I have to say.

Tomorrow it's down to Marseille for the day, which I'll see by the hop on hop off bus, then it's on to Nice, where I spend five nights.  I can't wait to do the Riviera, I'm sure that won't disappoint!!