Sophie and I got up early and headed on the two-hour high speed train to Lyon, to visit Daphne and her family. We were grateful that Sam and Daphne met us at the train station. As we walked to their place from the train station, we walked through old Lyon, crossing over both rivers, the Rhone and the Saône, which from the core of the city. Their apartment was built in mediaeval and the renaissance times. The door knocker was beautiful and the entranceway was an old tunnel (“traboule”), which are found throughout the old city of Lyon. We had a lovely ploughmen lunch and then headed out for a long walk. We climbed the hill overlooking Lyon seeing the amazing Basilica of Notre Dame of Fourvière. My mouth fell open as I entered the church; the Stain glass, gold leaf and mosaic tiles were incredible. Following the church, we walked further down the hill to see the Roman ruins, an amphitheatre and Odeon. There was a museum dedicated to this important archeological site that contained many treasures from the past. Erica, engrossed in the museum and stayed behind as the rest of us continued to walk around the city.
Daphne and Sophie had decided they wanted to make chocolate chip cookies thus we were on a mission to find chocolate chips, baking soda, and vanilla. We were all surprised by the lack of baking supplies in the grocery store, although looking around at all the local bakeries and thinking about the small kitchens, makes us understand why no one bakes at home. We were unable to find baking soda, and the girls had to try a new recipe. Cookies were delicious. That evening we went for dinner in the old quarter. We should have adapted to french timing, despite giving ourselves 2 1/2 hours to have dinner before the train, things were tight and we had to take an Uber urgently to catch our 10 PM train (in retrospect it would have been faster to find our way on a new metro system). Luckily Sam was able to pay the bill, and I transferred him money home safely and very grateful that Alastair picked us up at the train station as Paris after midnight, Paris has so many people living on the streets and struggling with addiction, I felt a little uncomfortable, given my scary experience of being followed by a group of men, 25 years ago.
