'Why do you want to go to Lyons? That's winter food," our Canadian friends complained, passing the chilled rosé as we lounged around the pool at their house on the outskirts of Aix-en-Provence on a sweltering summer's day. Why go anywhere at all? Why do anything more strenuous than refilling the jug of "Freshie," as we had taken to calling our pre-lunch aperitif?
My husband and I had already violated the three-day rule beyond which guests and fish turn rank. Besides, we had business in Paris, and Lyons was en route. A World Heritage Site, Lyons is the birthplace of cinema and the home of renowned nouvelle cuisine chef Paul Bocuse.
Most important, however, we owed France's second city a second chance. Two years ago, while passing through the city, we had one of the more spectacular brawls in our three decades of married life. It wasn't as bad as the time we divided our traveller's cheques on a street corner in Edinburgh, but it was close. The problems, as always, were directions and food. I was on my way to Milan and my husband planned to drop me at the Gare de la Part-Dieu before driving to Paris. Our map showed the train station's co-ordinates, but how were we to know it was located underneath Europe's largest shopping centre? We kept glimpsing delectable restaurants and spotting historic markers as we futilely circled the area, diverting around construction sites and one-way systems while hunger and frustration flared.
This time, we approached Lyons as a destination, not a way-station, determined to sate our palates and our lust for things historical and cultural. We settled into Au Patio Morand, a charming and moderately priced hotel not far from the Hotel de Ville (City Hall) and the Opera, ditched the rental car in a long-term parking garage, and set out to explore the city on foot or via the extensive and efficient public transit system.
Tucked between the Beaujolais and Côtes du Rhône wine regions, Lyons lies in the middle of France at the confluence of the Rhône and Saone rivers. Overshadowed by its two hills, the Fourvière and the Croix-Rousse, the city spills out along the banks of both rivers and across the peninsula that separates them.
After arid Aix-en-Provence, being on the water was irresistible. We collapsed onto a boat cruising the Saone, which took us as far as L'Île Barbe, the site of a medieval Benedictine abbey that was destroyed by Protestants in the 16th century. Travel snobs eschew boat cruises as tourist scams, but there's nothing better to give you a quick orientation in a new city and a cooling breeze to rev up your energy (and your appetite).
Lyons was a Celtic settlement until the Romans invaded in 43 BC, renaming it Lugdunum or "the hill of light." After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Lyons' location made it an influential religious crossroads during medieval times. It truly began to flourish during the Renaissance, when duty-free fairs attracted large numbers of foreign merchants.
Lyons became an international financial centre -- the bill of exchange, the personal cheque's predecessor, was invented here -- and later a manufacturing city as artisans, especially silk makers and weavers, followed the money and settled on the slopes of the Croix Rousse.
Much of the city was destroyed by mobs during the French Revolution, and the guillotine claimed many of its citizens. But Lyons prospered again in the Napoleonic era and enjoyed even greater prosperity as an industrial centre in the 19th century.
Vieux-Lyons (the Old City) reaches up a sharp hillside crowned by Notre Dame de Fourvière, an eclectic basilica sometimes called "the upside-down elephant" because of its bulky structure and slender steeples. You can take a funicular to the crest, visit the church and admire the view. On a fine day, you can even see Mont Blanc, 160 kilometres to the east. Below stretch the remnants of Roman Lyons, medieval churches and alleyways, and the Renaissance quarter with its rich merchant houses in shades of rosy ochre.
