Lyon day 1

This is why we went to France.  We were there to pick up Sam from his mission. Lyon was the meeting place, and TUESDAY, JULY 31, was the big day.

Clara getting ready to meet Uncle Sam for the first time

The big reunion

So she cried a little

Aren't they cute together?

After picking up Sam, we took one of those touristy open top bus tours.  We have found in our travels that they are often a great way to get a good overview of a place, and to see a lot in a limited amount of time.

Bus tour

Bus tour

Cool looking

Hotel de Ville

This is a crappy picture, but that yellow wall is actually a mural with depictions of notable people from Lyon standing on balconies.

Atop a big ol' hill in Lyon is the Basilica of Notre Dame de Fourviere.  I love the beautiful churches built on the top of hills all over France.

I thought these buildings along the river were really cool.

On the way up the hill to Notre Dame de Fourviere, there were the ruins of a Roman amphitheater.

More cool waterfront buildings

After riding the entire bus tour loop around once, we got off for lunch then hopped back on again to go explore some of the sights we saw on the tour.

Church by where we ate lunch

Bus touring again

We got off the bus at the basilica.

When we first walked in, I was so disappointed because the entire thing was covered in scaffolding for some restoration work.  Sad.

But the church was still beautiful and had some nice details.

Really, one of the best parts of visiting this basilica was the wonderful view of Lyon from atop that hill.

Thirsty?

Following our exploration of the church was made our way down the hill via this path, which got quite steep at times, and ended with quite a number of stairs.  Let me just say that I'm glad I'm not the one who ended up carrying the stroller down those.

At the bottom of the hill is the Lyon cathedral, or the Cathedral St. Jean Baptiste.

Lovely

Inside is an astronomical clock dating from the 14th century

From the Lyon cathedral, looking up to the basilica 

We spent some time exploring the area around the cathedral, Vieux Lyon, or Old Lyon. I don't think we actually took any pictures of that.  Here's an example from Wikipedia of what it looks like.

We found some traboules, which are covered passageways that were used to transport silk in inclement weather.  Another picture I found on wikipedia:

Vieux Lyon was fabulous, and we stopped to have dinner there, but it was a little bit hard to explore because the cobblestones were too rough to push the baby in her stroller, so we just had to carry her. What a good time we had exploring this beautiful city.

Funny face

A lion statue

Apartment and Road trip

MONDAY, JULY 30, 2012

Our time in Paris had come to an end.  On our way out, we snapped a couple of pictures of the apartment where we stayed while we were there.  It was very comfortable, with 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, a large kitchen, living room, and patio. It even had a washer/dryer.  We stayed over by where the Bastille used to be, which was a little bit east of the bulk of the stuff we saw.  But it was close to everything.  Excepting Versailles, the farthest thing away was the Eiffel Tower, which was about 2 and a half miles away.

kitchen

Patio

Patio

Living room

We then hopped in our rented vehicle and headed down to Lyon.  I think the drive ended up taking us around 5 or 6 hours, including a couple of stops.

Baby snoozed for most of the ride

Road trip

Yup, we're still in the car

Look! She's awake.

What's a road trip without snacks?

Awwwwwww

Mmmmmmm

French countryside

Okay, so I snoozed a little too

More French countryside

We finally made it to Lyon, where we stayed in a bilevel hotel suite with 3 large beds.  We missed our fancy apartment, but the accommodations weren't bad.  We settled in to watch some Olympics and relax.

musee du quai Branly

Sunday, July 29, 2012
After another botched attempt to go to the catacombs (the line was ever so long and we did not want to spend hours and hours there), we headed over to the musee du quai Branly.  This is actually the very first time we really got up close to the Eiffel Tower, which we walked by on the way to the museum.

The outside of the museum is neat.  It is designed to look like the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, and is surrounded by gardens.  It has a unique colorful facade.  I didn't get a picture, but here's one I pulled from the internet.

It was such an interesting museum, with artifacts from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. Here is a sampling of what we saw inside.

Pottery

Creepy

This is actually a hook for hanging things.

Eiffel tower

Sleepy baby

More breast feeding

Androgynous sculpture

And here we are on a bridge nearby after visiting the museum.

We had been going nonstop for days and days. We decided to go more low key and just do this museum on that day.  We had planned to also go to the Musee Carnavalet, a Parisian history museum, but we changed our plans and just bagged that.  Considering how many items we had on our Paris to do list, it is kind of amazing that the catacombs and Carnavalet are all we missed.