No room at the inn

 We are in authentic small town France. The town is Macon, 45 minutes north of Lyon.  Macron has a little over 33,000 people. It is on the Saone river. 

It has narrow little cobblestone streets with old buildings with shutters on the windows. It seems like a bigger town than it is. 

How did we end up here? Well, let me tell you. It was a series of mishaps, one big mistake by yours truly. 

So we left the fruit fly infested  and gross airbnb and went to a hotel last Tuesday. We stayed there til Saturday ready to go to the next airbnb in Lyon. Everything was copacetic.

We're sitting at the bus stop on Saturday with our luggage outside the hotel when I check the airbnb about where we're going. All of sudden, my stomach drops as I discover that I scheduled it for the wrong date. Instead of September 24-Oct 1, I had scheduled it for Oct 1-8. Uh oh, now what?

I quickly looked to see if the hotel we had just left had a room for that night. They did - at a cheaper price!  So we went back to the room we had been in. 

So now  what do we do for the rest of the week? So I called the desk and asked if the room was available until this Saturday. It was available through Monday night only. There was some big event occurring starting Tuesday. 

Ok, let's look for another hotel. There were no hotels within 20 miles of Lyon unless you wanted to pay $500 a night and there wasn't even many of those. Uh oh, now what? 

We ended up booking an Airbnb until Friday in Macon. It was the only option fairly close to Lyon. We have to go back to catch a plane on Saturday out of Lyon. 

I would like to say on my behalf, that with the many airbnbs, hotels, trains, planes we have been in and on, this is only my 15th mistake.  Really, it's the first time it's happened. So sue me.

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September 27, 2022 at 06:40PM

Vienna and Edinburgh - my future homes?

 

When M and I talk about where we would live if we decided to come back over here and stay a while, he likes Lyon and London. 

Lyon because of it's a pretty rivers and houses on the hills surrounding the city. It's picturesque. The buildings are beautiful. It is diverse. It's stylish. History, culture. Not overpopulated. Kind people.

London because there is lots to do and you will never see everything. Interesting neighborhoods. Probably the most diverse city. Speak English. 

For me it would be Vienna and Edinburgh. 

Vienna is just awe inspiring. The architecture may me almost over the top, but spectacular nonetheless. It has so many museums, concerts, cultural places. It could keep you busy for years. Great public transportation. Calm people.

Edinburgh was just fun. The Scottish people are outgoing, proud of their heritage, like to have a good time. Edinburgh is full of interesting old buildings and nooks and crannies. It is mysterious and moody. Weather is temperamental. I loved Linlithgow where we stayed and it's beautiful Loch. Beautifu scenery. Great castle on the hill.

Those are two countries I would definitely return to. 

. 

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September 26, 2022 at 07:08PM

There is a giant orange man on a mobile phone in Lyon France

There is a giant orange man on a mobile phone in Lyon France

 

The area we are in is called citi internationale. It is centered around a convention center. It is 79 acres.

As you start on the street toward our hotel there is Interpol, the international police organization that is a central location for training, technical assistance and super secret spy stuff. Then corporate offices. There's an apartment. A bank. 

The area here is a series of connected buildings. There are 4 hotels as part of it. One is a Marriott with a casino in the basement. Right next to the Marriott is a strip club. It's done in a way that it doesn't stand out. There is a movie theater.

Then there there is the convention center.

Part of the whole area is a museum of contemporary art. What's interesting about it is the front of it. This whole area used to be a set of buildings that were built in the 1930s for the trade fair. They moved the trade fair in the 80's and started building all this. The front of the art museum uses one of the old facades of the trade fair. 

There are many restaurants here, mostly pricey. Lots of outdoor seating. The latest addition is an amphitheater which seats 3200. In front of the amphitheater is a giant sculpture of an orange man on a mobile phone. It is part of 6 sculptures in the citi internationale called The Inhabitants.

Quite an interesting place. All this is across from a beautiful big park and beyond that is the river Rhône. 

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September 25, 2022 at 07:20PM

The hill that prays in Lyon, France

 It has been pouring rain, hailing here tonight in Lyon. It doesn't seem to want to stop.  Might have to head for the ark.

So I tell the history of things because it's interesting and I want to remember what I learned. 

So todays history lesson: Fourviere. It is a hill that overlooks the city. The Roman's established a city there in 43 B.C. There was a forum established. The Roman's lasted until the Middle Ages. The forum collapsed and the stone was used for other things. The hill lay dormant until the 16th century when there developed religious cults around St Thomas and then Mary in the area. 

A chapel was built in their honor  on the site of the old forum. There were plague epidemics in the 1600s. An annual pilgrimage was started up the hill to the chapel to ward off future epidemics.

In the 19th century a gold statue of Mary was commissioned and place on top of the chapel. A basilica was also built. The architecture is neo-Byzantine. People believed that Mary watched over the city and protected it. 

A pilgrimage continues every year on December 8 up the hill. People put a candle or lantern on their sill and walk up the hill with candles.

The basilica on the hill is seen as a symbol of Lyon. The Fourviere is known as "the hill that prays".

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September 24, 2022 at 07:07PM
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September 24, 2022 at 07:07PM

Brad Pitt, Interpol, YokoOno in our neighborhood in Lyon

 So I'm sitting in a French cinema (movie) watching and listening to previews in French. I love the way the language sounds. Seeing Bullet Train. Why? For the hell of it.

Today is a day of relaxation.  I walked around the lake in Lyon's largest park: Parc du la Tete d'Or. Very nice. It's across the street from the hotel. 

Now I'll watch Brad Pitt on the big screen. (Later: a violent comedy that is over the top but fun)

Neighborhood we are in is interesting. A couple of blocks down is the International Interpol headquarters. Interpol is an:

"International Criminal Police Organization and we are an inter-governmental organization. we have 195 member countries, and we help police in all of them to work together to make the world a safer place. 

To do this, we enable them to share and access data on crimes and criminals, and offer a range of technical and operational support."

"International Criminal Police Organization and we are an inter-governmental organization. We have 195 member countries, and we help police in all of them to work together to make the world a safer place." (From their 

Oookay then...I really don't want to know..

Down the street from them is a fine art museum. In front of it is a railroad car. It is from Germany during the WW2 era. There are bullet holes in it. Lord knows what happened there.

Somehow this ended up in Mexico. A few years ago, a group of Mexicans trying to get to the U.S, got in it and the door was locked at some point. The car was abandoned in the desert and they all died. 

Yoko Ono inspired by this incident, made the car into an art piece, "expressing resistance, healing, and hope for the next century." It has travelled the world.

Inside it is a very bright light that illuminates the bullet holes and her music plays.

And that folks is our neighborhood in Lyon.

Vieux Lyon was almost a freeway

 

I was in yet another cathedral here in Lyon called Cathedrale Saint-Jean Baptiste. Catholic, but not as fancy as others. The architecture is Romanesque. Building started in 1100's and finished in late 1400's.

Romanesque traits are massive stone and brickwork, tall round arches, small windows, usually housing sculpture depicting. Biblical scenes. This has all of those features. 

While I was there, they were tuning the organ. It was installed in 1841 and added on to in 1875. It made quite the sound in the massive cathedral.

The cathedral has an interesting feature- the Lyon astronomical  clock.. It has an astrolabe in it which is a handheld model of the universe. It was used to identify precise locations of planets and measure latitudes and other stuff I don't understand.

It has several dials. One shows the sun and moon revolving around the earth (like they used to believe) on the horizon of Lyon. Another dial shows minutes numbered one to sixty.

Another part shows a calendar that works for 66 years. So it was set 66 years ago, but stoped in 2017 two years short. There are plans to reset it.

On the top is a automoton that has various figures among them Jesus and Mary that rise according to the day of the week. So  Chist rising on Sunday, Death on Monday(because they've known for centuries that Mondays suck), Saint John the Baptist on Tuesday, Saint Stephen on Wednesday, Christ with a chalice on Thursday, a child with a cross on Friday, Mary on Saturday. (per Wikipedia)

This Cathedral is in the Vieux Lyon, the Renaissance area. An interesting thing about the area: in the 1960's the mayor wanted to tear it  all down and put in an expressway because the area was unloveable. Protests stopped that and renovations began. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  

We had to leave our air bnb.

M on glass walkway

 This has not been the best of weeks. 

We arrived at creepy 17th century apartment on Saturday. It was like air bnb from hell. The four keys to get in plus code for the elevator started it off.

Now I can appreciate an older building as much as the next person but going inside and living in a 300+ old building is another story. It definitely looked it's age.

We start from the massive wooden door with the weird key to get in. As you enter, there is a long cement hall. You come to a staircase. Beside the staircase is a small courtyard that has an old well they used to get their water from. On the other side of the door is a door to the cellar where the ghosts of past residents roam.. 

We were on the 5th floor, so we used the tiny elevator which required a code to go to the floor. When you get to the floor, you step out on to a landing this is in the courtyard five stories up. Couple of steps up and you are in the hallway. First door that requires a key. Go in that door, go a short way down the hall to another door, another key. You havre arrived at your apartment door area and another door, another key. Go to the actual door of the apartment use another to get in. 

You enter into a combination living room, kitchen, dining area. It has the  original stone floor. The walls are old stone. There is a bathroom on this floor with the original old door. 

There is a very narrow iron spiral staircase to the left of the door. Going up is manageable. Coming down is dangerous. At the top is a bedroom with a closet and a bed up on a platform with stairs at the end. There is a sliding door that leads to a glass walkway that leads to another bed in a nook with slanted ceiling. You can see through to the 1st floor as you walk across the walkway.

I decided against sleeping on the 2nd floor due to the stairway. I'm 67 and it really was kind of dangerous. So I slept on the couch. 

The first night we noticed fruit flies. We thought, no big deal, They will go away. Nope . It was bad. They didn't go away. They were more and more of a nuisance. We tried the vinegar trick. Nope. Didn't work. So we decided we had had enough and moved out. The place had other problems. We are in a hotel til our next airbnb date.

Not a good week.

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September 21, 2022 at 06:50PM
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September 21, 2022 at 06:50PM