In search of the sun

Saturday, June 11, 2016
Lyon, Rhône-Alpes, France
All my photos from Meiringen were taken on my mobile phone and I haven't worked out how to post them yet. It was an absolutely fabulous day though. The weather was perfect. Blog to come .... sometime.

 Found the sun! At Lyon in France after a lengthy train journey .
 
It had rained overnight and we woke to low clouds and misty rain. A perfect day for a train journey. We did a bit of a circular route out of Switzerland. North to Luzern via the Brunig Pass in our panorama coach. Despite the rain, the view was great. Little surprises kept appearing - a group of cows right next to the line with their cowbells; at least 5 little statues of animals; and then more 'homely' statues of clowns, dwarfs, stones.

Then past Lake Lungern and on to Luzern where we had 5 minutes to change trains. Made it. Headed west to Bern then south-west to Lausanne and Geneva. We had 40 minutes at Geneva, so checked out the first class lounge. No free beer - but free coffee, tea and juice.

There were big signs about having to show tickets and passports as we headed through corridors to platform 7 and our Regional train to Lyon. But there was no one there to do any checking. The trip south-west to Lyon was very interesting . The railway followed the Rhone River for a while and then wound through the floor of a valley, before emerging onto flat country.

Once again the phone gps decided it knew better than we did and used another Ibis hotel - thus sending us on a wild goose chase. We've stayed at a couple of Ibis Budget hotels in the past, and they've been modern but roomy enough. Last night this Ibis we booked was advertised as 70% off, silly me didn’t check the size of the room (just checked that the wifi got a good rating). What a box of a room! And yes, you really can get fabulous last minute deals - this just wasn't one of them.

So maybe we were both a bit antsy when we headed off to explore Lyon - we weren't really impressed with the place. We headed off down Rue Garibaldi and then left on to Franklin Roosevelt and over the Rhone at Pont Morand. The square here was rather nice - had to dodge some skate boarders. Continued along Rue Constantine but didn’t cross the Saone River. I think we got a better view walking along this side. I think we'll have to avoid cities on weekends - like Wroclaw last weekend, Lyon was crowded, noisy and dirty. 

There were lots of police about place de la Republique - we carried on over Pont Wilson and had a beer overlooking the Rhone (and coincidentally a restaurant boat nyamed "Ayers Rock"). Then had a very enjoyable meal at a square closer to the Ibis Les Halle - I had some sort of duck and mushrooms which was divine.
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