Day 4: Lyon

We checked out of the Hotel Royal and they told me it would be a quick ride to our next hotel, the Sofitel Lyon. So we loaded all our stuff onto the bus and I thought we were going to head right over. Turned out to not be the case. The driver took us all the way out in the 'burbs for our first hotel inspection of the day. On the way, one girl showed me pictures from their tour of Vieux Lyon (Old Lyon) that they took while I was sick in bed. They got to go in the beautiful church. I cried. No, I really did.

So then I just started snapping pictures of ANYTHING, because I figured the bus rides to and from hotel inspections were the only "tours" I was going to get.

Colorful houses and a church along the Rhône river


A sidestreet with a neat arch-thing over it


A cool clock-tower thing in a roundabout


The Rhône river


McDonalds


A Ford dealership (where French people buy their imports)


A common Lyonnaise 'burbian house

So we finally got to our hotel site, the Lyon Charbonniéres. Had a gorgeous lunch here. Too bad my appetite hadn't fully recovered from being sick yet. I'm just gonna post a picture of dessert. This was the ultimate in creamy delicious caramel custard YUM.


Our next hotel inspection was back in town at the Hotel Carlton, a charming old-style hotel with an antiquated elevator and cool tapestry-like room decor:


Finally, our last hotel inspection of the whole trip was the Grand Hôtel Mercure Château Perrache. I'll just say they sure do know how to make their guests feel welcome.

Yes, please.

So we were finally done. We actually had about two hours to spare with our bus driver, so one half of the group opted to go shopping at Printemps (a chic department store) while the other half (of which I was a part) opted to go see the Roman ruins. They had driven by the ruins as part of the bus tour of Vieux Lyon the day before, but didn't have a chance to get out and walk around. So I went to the ruins to at least see a part of Vieux Lyon. I'm not exactly sure what these are ruins OF... just that they were Roman and were about 2,000 years old.








We didn't get a chance to make it over to Notre Dame de Fourvière from here, so it eluded me once again.

Took this view overlooking Lyon from the ruins:


As we drove away I took this parting shot of Fourvière:


We picked up the rest of the group from Printemps. Here are some additional city views:





The French have a thing for carousels.

We finally checked into the Sofitel Lyon and they told us we were on our own for dinner that night. So some of the other girls and I headed off to a restaurant to order our own meal. I got crab. They serve it cold over there. It was interesting. Had some yummy desserts as well too.

I'm gonna pick on this guy... he was one of our waiters and he wanted to come back to the US with us. I got a pic of him posing with a lobster.


And here is our lovely hotel at the end of the day.


Alright, that's it for pictures! Hope you enjoyed them!