Around The World Without Flying: Lyon, France Part 1 - the city, its rivers and its cathedral

Today is another scorcher, with the temperature at least 38 degrees Celsius and high humidity.

With all my huffing and puffing, I did not really finish last night’s tale, so I will begin with that. I was somewhat startled to see a large, tight circle of police or army personnel with machine guns in the middle of the Lyon main station when I arrived in Lyon. It seemed that something was up, so I scurried out. Fortunately I had a great taxi driver, who spoke English very well and was very excited that I was from Australia. His cousin lives there now, but he has not been able to visit her yet. So as we drove along I had an interesting running commentary from him about the two virtually parallel rivers in Lyon - the Rhone and the Saone - the universities, the old town, and other important features. My hotel faces the Rhone and is on the strip of land between the two rivers.

By the time I registered at the hotel, which was about 4.30 pm, I was really hungry and thirsty, as I had not been able to purchase anything at the Geneva station. (Long story.) Thankfully my hotel in Lucerne gave me a complimentary bottle of water for the journey as I was leaving early in the morning, or I would have been really dehydrated. To my surprise this hotel did not have any food available at that time, since it was not their formal dinner time, so the receptionist gave me a map to find a cafe she recommended. So one very tired and hungry petunia hiked in the heat to the cafe, which was a few blocks away, only to find that at that time of day I could only buy beer or wine. I left as graciously as I could.

Eventually, after a lot more walking, I finally found a French cafe that was serving food and not just alcohol. It mainly offered, of all things, hamburgers, though not quite like our traditional ones. They were huge! After eating most of it and drinking some sparkling mineral water, I began to feel half-human again.

I am so glad it was French, though, and not the ubiquitous McDonalds. While I guess you can admire the company for being so entrepreneurial, to me it is just dreadful seeing their insidious hold on just about every city in the world, and on so many teenagers and children who then have the wrong impression that McDonalds IS America, and this is typical American food! And to eat there is 'cool'. When they have their own culture and their own delicious foods to celebrate, I think that is very sad. I personally dislike the food served up in McDonalds and avoid it at all costs. In any case, when I am in France, as I am now, I want to try typical French food!

This morning when I went up for breakfast, one of the waitresses there was delighted to hear I was from Australia. She said she had recently spent a year in Sydney and it was the best year of her life!

After a light breakfast, I braved the heat and crossed over to view and photograph the Rhone then hiked up through the town square and across a bridge to catch a funicular up to the cathedral (also known as a basilica) that overlooks the city. This is called the Notre Dame de Fourviere. It was very impressive inside. But one sight that completely saddened me was the man sitting in a wheelchair begging at the cathedral gate - a gate to a mighty cathedral full of rich carvings and beautiful windows. His feet and hands were deformed and he was almost blind.

I have seen a lot of beggars on my travels, some of them prostrating themselves before the uncaring crowds, with their foreheads on the pavement. That they should have to give up their dignity in that way, such is their need, is an indictment on the society in which they live.

They and this man in particular brought to my mind the Bible story ‘“But Lord - when saw we Thee hungry and gave thee no food, and thirsty and gave Thee no drink?” And the Lord said “When thou doest this to one of these the least of my brethren, thou doest it unto me.”’ (I apologise if I have made an error in the quote, but I am sure you get the spirit of it.) When I gave him some money he just held my hand and thanked me again and again. I think he was a refugee and wonder what his story is. Sadly I will never know.

After that I went into a delightful cafe next to the cathedral overlooking the wonderful view of the city from up there, and had a really nice lunch. It was such a relief from the heat to sit in the shade of a great tree and feel the breeze wafting around.

When I got back down I was so exhausted, however, I hired a pedi-car back to the hotel. Luckily it was being driven on a battery, or I would have felt guilty expecting someone to pedal me in such conditions. I had a great chat with the driver and will meet him again later when it is little cooler to see a little more of this beautiful city.

The photos I had planned to include were taking quite a long time to download, so in this post I am just showing the photos I took on my iPhone. I will not caption the photos taken inside the cathedral.