23 February ’05, Wednesday.
Basilica of Notre Dame de Fourviere, Lyons France
Yesterday we enjoyed a full day just wondering the streets of Lyons.
Basilica of Notre Dame de Fourviere, Lyons France
Yesterday we enjoyed a full day just wondering the streets of Lyons.
The Basilica Notra Dame de Fourviere, in all it’s striking majesty, sits high on a hill overlooking the old city…as you look up to it, it will knock you over because of it’s size and it’s beauty. Now, that’s before you find all the stairs that you have to climb to get there.
It is a huge complex of church and chapel of the Virgin. We opted for the steep streets going up, and the stairs coming down, and my muscles still cramp thinking of all that torture. This Basilica has some of the most beautiful mosaic tile art work in the world. I wanted to take a picture of it, but because of the brilliance of some of the tiles, it made it impossible. Now, a surprise to me, Lyons is the culinary capital of the world. We didn’t hit the “High-roller” spots for lunch, but the restaurant we did go to, served a wonderful lunch and at a reasonable price as well. Next on our list, was the Cathedral of St. Jean.
A beautiful gothic church that houses a fourteenth century astronomical clock. A real treasure. Today, our drive from Lyons to Paris was about 450 km and we took the toll road to make the best time we could. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any campgrounds prior to Paris that we could stay at, seeing as this is the winter time and most are still closed. We were on the road by 9am and we pulled into the campground about 3pm, or 6 hours to cover 290 miles. We didn’t get a chance to really enjoy the scenery, as we had snow falling off and on the whole way. The clouds were right down on top of us. We did see a few fantastic chateaus and some rustic villages. When we found our turn off from the toll way, the snow was coming down pretty good. As we came to the first corner, it turned out to be a giant round-about, and it led off to at least 5 different directions….”what one do we take ????” “I can’t find our sign”…”Go right”…”What is that???, O God, it’s the Arc de Triomphe,
and we’re going the wrong way…” “OK, hold on, I’ll make a U-Turn and we’ll go back..” “Right in front of the Arc de Triomphe ???”..”Oh God”…”OK, now, go around the round-about a couple of times so I can read the signs…” Well, we found our sign and were able to make our way to the campground without any additional hitch. We are camped on the bank of the Seine River and on the opposite side of the road is a huge park called Bois de Boulogne. Our bus stop is just up the street a little bit. We will grab the bus and the metro tomorrow and go to the Louvre and hope to see the painting of the Mona Lisa, along with many other fine works of art. Now for that glass of vin de France!!! Rouge or Blanc ???