Looking around Lyon

We have two full days in Lyon before we head to Paris on Tuesday. Today we crossed the Rhone River and walked down to the Tourist Centre to get some ideas on what we should do.

This morning was a walk around the old part of Lyon which included a walk up to Basilica of Notre Dame of Fourvière. This is a huge cathedral built in the late 1800s on a hill overlooking Lyon. It is beautiful BUT like I said it is at the top of a hill so we had to start climbing. The views of Lyon in the morning were incredible. This area is also the site of Roman ruins.

The Ancient Theatre of Fourvière is close to the cathedral and has the remains of a couple of theatres plus some walls of other buildings. The site was a key outpost of the Roman Empire and the settlement dates to about 15BC.

Being a Sunday we had to wait for Mass to finish before we could take photos in the cathedral and it was stunning. It is heavily decorated with stained glass and mosaics. See the photos.

We then headed down the hill where we had lunch in a small sandwich shop before catching the metro to Monplaisir Lumiere. The metro is only two carriages but very efficient and quick.

We wanted to get to the Lumiere Museum. The Lumiere brothers Louis and Auguste are credited with inventing motion pictures with their first movie of workers at their factory walking out the gates to go home for lunch being made in 1895. In their factory they used to make glass photographic plates before working out how to make to images move. They employed about 900 people of which 600 were women, they worked 10 hours a day 6 days a week and healthcare was included.

The museum was really interesting to see how it all evolved and how modern directors and actors pay credit to the Lumiere Brothers.

We then caught the metro back into town for a brief siesta before going to find somewhere for dinner.Read more