Lyon

This morning, we stumbled out of our Paris hostel at 7am to catch the train to Lyon, when the city was still half-asleep and basking in the morning mist. Despite being unable to sleep the previous night due to jet lag, I stayed awake during (most) of the train ride, utterly captivated by the serene landscape. The sun had still not fully risen, and the train took us through lush pastoral fields glistening with the day’s first rays of light, meadows shrouded in morning fog, grazing cattle and quaint farmhouses. The compartment was strangely quiet, and with Jack Johnson playing on the ipod, I looked out the window at the layers of green, and let my mind go blank…

Lyon is the third largest city in France, but it felt endearingly intimate. Here, the colour scheme of architecture shifted from the Parisian palette of  blue and grey to the Mediterranean cream and brick red. I was dying  to spend the day exploring le Vieux Lyon (Old Lyon) – a UNESCO world heritage site boasting Roman ruins and Byzantine churches. But we were exhausted from the mad dash this morning and took a break at beautiful Place Bellecour, shared a baguette, and let out the frustration on the pigeons. Those poor birds.

“The pigeons are so fat.”

“Yeah, ew, they’re gross, I hate pigeons!”

After the pigeon conversation, we stopped for lunch.

Yes, I ate all of the above by myself. I’m SO hungry these days, one of the reasons for my insomnia last night may have been hunger..?

After a bloated lunch we were finally off to the Old City, which dates from Roman Gaul and was breathtakingly beautiful.

On Fourviere Hill stands two amphibitheatres from the Roman times. They were constructed in the first and second century respectively, declined into ruin during the middle ages as their stones were quarried for other uses, and remarkably survived into the present day.