Lyon – Day 1 (Vieux Lyon)

September 24, 2014 by lafrancoysse 1 Comment

Sunday (Sept 21) was my first full day in Lyon. The plan was to take a guided tour of a 16thC house in Vieux Lyon, called Musée Gadagne. When I checked in the U.S., I did not see a way to make a reservation for the tour. However, when I checked here in France, it did appear that reservations needed to be made and that, probably, none were left for this day. Since the tour wasn’t scheduled until 3pm, I decided to get myself to the museum well before the tour to see if I could weasel into it. Well, let me tell you about the Journées du Patrimoine….this translates roughly to “Days of our Patrimony”. It is a weekend every year when France emphasizes its “patrimoine” by providing special tours of buildings and historic sights and opens up some historic sites not usually open to the public. The word “patrimoine” is one with much more depth of meaning than its English translation. The “patrimoine” is the history of France, not just history in a “dates and places” sort of way, but also in the “how things were done in the past” way too. Here, “history” is so visible and covers much a long period of time. The French are very proud of this history and feel that it is very important to learn about it so that it can be passed to future generations. For them, keeping the past known is an important part of moving into the future.  It is a difficult concept to describe, one that I am not completely sure of myself.

Anyway, the weekend of September 20th/21st were this year’s Journées du Patrimoine. The bad news was that of course I wasn’t going to find room on the tour on the 21st because everyone was out enjoying the Journées and had booked the tour. The good news was that the museum (which describes the history of Lyon) had waived its admission for the Journées, so since I now had some time on my hands, I decided to check it out (and to at least see the inside of the 16thC building). The museum was very interesting! When we were in London last year, I was surprised how much I enjoyed learning about the history of London in the History of London museum. So too did I now enjoy learning about the history of Lyon. And, thank goodness, they did have some information about the lovely (16thC) rooms too. Here is a picture of the wonderful spiral staircase (called the l’Escalier d’Honneur) and the “Salle Renaissance”. A 16thC guest to the house would have walked up the spiral staircase and entered into this room.

L’Escalier d’Honneur

The “grand salle” of the house: note the beautiful fireplace at the end and the lovely windows – on both sides

Whilst investigating the museum’s book shop, I found a tour book of Vieux Lyon and decided to use the rest of my afternoon in the exploration of this architecture (a lot of which is 16thC). This is where the 2nd benefit of it being the Journées weekend came in. Many of these old buildings have beautiful courtyards, entered through a passage behind their front door. In the guidebook, it mentions when a given door is open, so that you can walk through (some only in morning, others in afternoons, etc.). But because it was the Journées weekend, almost all of these doors were open all day and had people going through them pretty constantly (a benefit when the doors are be somewhat obscure). So I got to see quite a few of these lovely courtyards on my walk through Vieux Lyon! Oh, and did I forget to add that after walking through the museum, my feet were tired and my tummy empty. So I stopped at a café for some lovely hot mint tea and a crêpe – lightly filled with honey and with two little steamed figs on top! Now onto the walk through Vieux Lyon….

I thought I’d try to give you a (quick) summary. The fronts of the houses come in many varieties (first 2 photos). I, of course, am especially fond of the very Renaissance-y ones (3rd photo).

Pink tower on the corner of 22, rue Juiverie

Lovely galleries of 60, rue Saint Jean

Now that’s Renaissance influence…14, rue Lainerie

To start your journey, you go through a fairly innocuous-looking door, and often down a fairly dark corridor…..

Door to 52, rue Saint Jean

But once you enter back into the light, you are standing in a beautiful little Renaissance courtyard. Around you, you might see a gallery, a spiral staircase, tiered hallways…..

Gallery in courtyard of 8, rue Juiverie

Spiral staircase in courtyard of 23, rue Juiverie

Tiered hallways with vaulted ceilings in courtyard of 28, rue Saint Jean 

And if that wasn’t enough, there is one with its staircase in a beautiful pink tower:

Tower in courtyard of 16, rue de Boeuf 

There were many other lovely sights…too many to show. I arrived back at the hotel foot sore and hungry. It turned out that on Sunday evening, many of the interesting restaurants that I had scouted out the night before were closed. So I went back to the Tunisian one again. This time, I had a the “brik” was filled with a fried egg and tuna; followed by couscous (bowl 1), veggies in broth (bowl 2) and a platter with a bit of lamb & chicken; finally, sorbet for dessert: two flavors I’d never had – one scoop of fig and 2nd of lemon with thyme! First day in Lyon “est fini”!

P.S. I forgot to include today’s “bit with the dog”: a sign for a bar/café in Vieux Lyon:

Sign for the “Smoking Dog”