A night in Lyon

After the afternoon session, there was to be a business session, and then everyone who wanted to would go by tram and subway over to historic Lyon for a guided historical tour and then the Grand Banquet.  I had my laptop with me at the sessions, and didn't want to cart it around all evening. So I headed back to the hotel, assuming that people would not leave for the tram station until the time designated.  Ah, but this is France and schedules and the French don't mix well.  Since the business session was much shorter than expected, they all left about 20 min early, so by the time I got back, everybody had left.

Since I thought I had a pretty good idea of how to get to the first stop, I tried to catch up.  Problem 1:  It turns out that the tram ticket I had in my pocket was not the 3 day all tram/subway/bus ticket the organizers had given us, but rather the used one way ticket that I had bought the day I came in.  I only figured this out after repeatedly having it rejected by the machine inside the tram. Fortunately, the tram are essentially on the honor system, so I just kept riding the short distance to the stop which was suppose to be for the subway station.  I got off and found a machine to purchase another 1 way ticket for the subway (still dealing with the coin vs credit card issue).  And then tried to figure out where the subway station was.  It is really confusing when you can't read much French, because little things throw you.  Symbol signs are helpful, of course, but you always feel like there is at least one piece of information that is missing.  But I was eventually able to find it and get on the right subway train.  But when I arrived at where the tour was to start (Place Belacour), I couldn't see our group.  The plaza was vast and there were lots and lots of people, so I pretty much realized I was doomed to miss the tour.

Fortunately, I did have a map with me, so I could at least wander around Place Belacour
where you could see the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourviere across the river and up the hill.
A spectacular looking old cathedral that I never had the chance to visit.

After walking down to the Rhone river

I wandered back along the Rue de Victor Hugo.
  It had gotten dark and most of the shops were beginning to close, but downtown Lyon was pretty and beautiful, in deep contrast to Villeurbanne.

For the first time I really felt like I was in the France I had imagined. I stopped into a bookstore and bought some children's books in French.  Since the girls wanted berets or French clothes, I also looked into some of the many clothing shops.  But I was shocked when cute little berets were selling for 50 euros. (Roughly 75 dollars).  Out of my price range.  By this time I reached the general area where the banquet was suppose to be (near the Perrache train station), I realized I had Problem #2.  I didn't actually know what the name of the restaurant was.

They had shown a picture of the front of the restaurant at the conference earlier in the day and given the name, but it was a fairly narrow photo, and I had forgotten the name. I turned out not to have the conference schedule on my iPod and needed wireless to search for it, which I didn't have.  I walked around to all of the restuarants on the main side of Perrache plaza, but I really didn't have any sense that I had gone by the right place.  So I tried to find my way over to the other side of the train station.  Still no luck, but then when I walked to a high point on the train station, I saw something that seemed to matched what I was looking for.


It was still about 15 minutes before the banquet was suppose to start, so I figured I would stand outside the restaurant (Brassieres Georges) and wait for the group to come in.  I waited and waited, but it reached the appointed time and no group had arrived. I wondered if I had the wrong place, but had no better candidates.  Finally, I saw one guy who looked like one of the organizers of the conference and I stopped him.  He said this was the place, and just to go in.  I did, but sat all by myself in the large section of the restaurants set aside for large groups.  I think the waiters were very uncomfortable with me sitting there all by myself, or maybe I just felt uncomfortable.  Finally, people began filtering in.

The meal made up for all the disappointment of missing the tour and the uncomfortable wait.  It was fantastic and the conversation was great as well.  If there was anything I came to appreciate on my trip to France, it was that of a slow, drawn out meal with lots of talk and excellent food.  Rather than the sort of quickly stuff my face and then lets move on to what needs to be done sort of affair that seems to mark most of my eating. The final course was written on the menu as an omelet, but bore no resemblance to an egg and cheese dish.  Instead it was an omelette à la norvégienne which is a flambe, baked Alaska, sort of dish with little nuggets of something like ice cream in a convection of some sort. They would dim the lights slightly when they would bring it out to each table, with the sparklers sizzling. (See les desserts pull down menu of la cartes at the Brassiere Georges website for a nice picture of this. At the end of the evening, I rode back on the tram with the whole group, and they rehearsed some of the interesting sites they had seen on the tour.  I really wish I had not missed it.