Lyon
As the short cruise from Rochetaillée meant we had arrived late in the morning and not wanting to waste time, I decided to have a quick reconnaissance nearby that afternoon.
Lyon – Reconnaissance
The ‘old city’ was on the right bank (we were moored on the left), so I crossed the nearest passerelle and popped into one of the many churches on that side of the river (Saint Martin D’Ainay), which featured an ornate dome over the apse
and a nicely framed statue of Jeanne D’Arc.
Crossing back over to the other bank, I headed towards the Rhône which runs close and parallel to the Saône at this point,
then into another church to find another Jeanne and back to Catharina.
After dinner, as night fell, we were treated to the illumination of the old city, featuring the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière, a target for our visit the next day.
Lyon – the Basilica and Fête de la Musique
First off, another visit by everyone (less Marty who remained on Catharina) to St Martin D’Ainay.
Our next challenge was to ascend to the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière. It’s at the top of a cliff, overlooking the entire city, and the temperatures were soaring.
Fortunately, there is a funicular that takes you from the river to the Basilica – so we hot-footed it over there, paid our return ticket and were off. A short walk at the top took us to the front of the huge Basilica.
Built with private funds, it was completed in 1896 and is dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It is huge, with the towers nearly 50 m tall. It is actually two churches, one on top of the other. The upper one is more ornate
and there are enormous mosaics on the north and south walls.
Less ornate but equally impressive,
the lower crypt features eleven statues of the Virgin Mary from around the world. One is Our Lady of Naval, an image carved in 1610 representing the Virgin’s support in vanquishing a Dutch naval invasion of the Philippines.
Another striking piece is one by a Ukrainian artist, Larissa Perekrestova, titled La vie de Saint-Jacques de Compostelle, which depicts his life and also the halts along the Camino de Santiago – the pilgrimage routes across Europe that take pilgrims to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, where the remains of St James are said to be buried.
The bottom right, next to the plinth, has a representation of the abbey Saint-Pierre in Moissac – our destination this season.
We next decided to visit the ruins of the nearby Roman Amphitheatre. It was now very hot, and the walk to it was very steep and downhill. Lisette waited for Juliet and me in the shade as another bout of steep climbing was too much of a challenge for her knee. The impressiveness of the ruins was muted by the extensive modifications that had been made to allow for music festivals and other events, one that was clearly scheduled for the day we visited, which was the national Fête de la Musique held each year on the evening of the summer solstice.
The walk back up to the Basilica and the station was excruciating in the heat, but we took our tram back down to the river’s edge, and I located a shop ‘Amarena’ that fulfilled the promise of the name and had Amarena (cherry) ice cream as one of its offerings.
We’ve mentioned before the annual Fête de la Musique before, celebrated in France on the longest day every year. As Lyon is a big city, the number of performances and locations was huge. Too many to really choose properly. So, with Lisette keeping Martin company on board, Juliet and I decided to just browse the options that were being organised on the right (old-city) side of the river. Performances started at about 6 pm and would go on until at least 10 pm – performers changing regularly. Th0se at this location, in the early evening, were pop-rock
and community dancing.
The most colourful was an Amazonian group. This chap exuded heaps of personality along with a strikingly colourful costume.
The music and dancing from the group ‘Folclor Amazonia’ (promoting Latin American culture) was the best that we saw in our relatively brief visit to the performances. Here’s a short clip from one of their performances.
Lyon is famed for its range and quality of food. Juliet and I decided to put this to the test by seeing what the city had to offer in terms of KFC. Why? Well, Marty had been waxing lyrical about KFC’S offerings in South Africa, England, Scotland and Ireland, and there was some pressure to see what France had to offer. One was nearby. The place was absolutely packed and chaotic.
Ordering was electronic, but delivery was by shouting across the crush of people. The wait was interminable, and the offerings had no ‘just chicken’ items other than popcorn chicken. We took some burgers away. They were awful. So, we now have a place mark for the worst food in France. Ironic, seeing as our current placemark for the best food was only a week or so ago in Tornus.
Lyon – Cinema and Miniatures
In the morning, we were delighted to see our friends Mary-Jane and Michael arrive on their cruiser, Oliva Rose.
We had been in contact (our ‘long village’ lifestyle means we keep tabs on each other) and they moored just upstream from us. Later, we had some drinks and a chat aboard – and were pleased to confirm we were heading in the same direction – meaning we should have other opportunities for more extended socialising.
At about the same time, we caught sight of a rarely seen, but not unknown, aspect of our waterways lifestyle – a pleasure barge being towed by a commercial barge.
Sometimes, owners of underpowered barges feel that they won’t be able to cruise their barge upstream on a big river like the Rhône and seek out a big vessel to tow them. They are not attached behind, but beside the bigger vessel. It’s apparently quite scary, travelling fast with a large wake from the big vessel, a constant threat to the lower private barge. But, it is done occasionally.
Musée Cinéma & Miniature
Lisette’s contribution. Our first visit of the next day was to the Musée Cinéma & Miniature in the old city.
Historic building
The building housing the museum is a beautiful example of Renaissance architecture. The museum makes full use of it, guiding the visitor up, down and around to explore the spaces used for the exhibits.
Cinema
The museum invites you to discover sets and props used to shoot world-famous films. Dedicated to preserving actual items from movie sets, the museum hosts the set creators who bring the materials with them, repair any damage and prepare them for display. There are hundreds of items in storage, which, I imagine, like any museum, are brought out from time to time, refreshing the displays on offer. Some are actual sets from movies, and others are rooms with original items, posters and videos. The comprehensive materials accompanying each display describe how the scene was set, what animatronics may have been used, how they were put together, including special effects and trick photography. There was a large amount of information on how miniatures are made specifically to be destroyed – blown up or burnt down, basically small-scale models of the buildings, planes, vessels or spaceships from the movie.
The very first exhibit we came to was three sets from one of my all-time favourite movies, “Perfume” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfume: The Story of a Murderer). Descending a dark staircase, we found ourselves peering into the gloom of two caves, where the ‘protagonist’ conducts his experiments. A team of 12 people, the original set makers, spent 6 months recreating these sets for the museum. Polish glass factories had made more than 1300 glass vials for the film, which were filled with coloured liquids and sealed with wax. It was quite surreal to be essentially witnessing the recreated scenes. We were then led up a staircase to the actual perfumerie shop from the movie.
Outside, we came across the Ford Anglia from ‘Harry Potter’. (You can see it in the first photo in this section.) Later, we saw Harry’s glasses, Ron’s wand and the letter addressed to Harry, ‘under the stairs’.
There was Mary Poppins’ parrot-headed umbrella, Iron Man’s glove and Thor’s hammer.
We wandered through rooms dedicated to the Ghostbusters movies, then onto Beetlejuice. We saw how they did Michael Keaton’s makeup, the facial transformations of Barbara and Adam,
and had a sit-down on the couch.
There was a number of exhibits from several of the ‘Star Wars’ movies including
Miniatures
Heads pounding from all of the cool movie stuff we had seen, we then entered a series of rooms with the most amazing display of miniatures that one could imagine. The degree of detail is unreal. (Click on each image to better appreciate the incredible detail of these scale models.)
There were so many to see that it was hard to leave, but we were all exhausted.
The heat was beginning to tell again, so we reluctantly left the museum and sought some appropriate refreshments.
The late afternoon heat led us to seek shelter in the Cathedral of Saint-Jean Baptiste. The most impressive feature here was secular – it was an impressive astronomical clock.
At 9 m tall, it dates to the late 14th century, although it was extensively repaired and brought to its present form in 1661. It shows the date, position of the moon, sun, earth and stars over Lyon – with the Earth at the centre. It also has some extensive animatronics that change with both the time of day and the day of the week. Unfortunately, we weren’t there for any of the activity, but we’ll be sure to do so next time we’re in Lyon. The other feature that took our fancy was a poignant painting of St Cecilia – the patron saint of music.
Although we had barely scratched the surface of all that Lyon has to offer, we were keen to offer Marty and Juliet some more cruising and, as we expect to be back in Lyon in the future, decided to press on. Power wasn’t a problem – cruising and our solar batteries mean we are generally independent of shore power, but we do need to top up with water. Water was available nearby, across the other side of the river, but with the connection halfway up the wall. We had reconnoitred the setup, and we could either moor up at the spot where the hotel barge moors and use their hose (having checked that was OK with them) or hang about against the wall. Arriving back on board, we noticed that the hotel barge had left, so Marty and I dashed across to the other side and started filling. Lisette and Juliet babysat the mooring ropes we had left behind in the hope we could reclaim our spot once we had replenished the water tank.
Unfortunately, the hotel boat returned partway through filling as they had just been taking its new guests on a short trip through Lyon, but they kindly stood off for a few minutes as we cast off and drifted backwards to the water point.
A very good flow rate meant we were soon able to travel across back to our mooring, this time facing towards the Rhône and Avignon – our next major destination.
