Paris – Dijon – Lyon

I’m in my apartment in Lyon as I write, desperately hiding from the 36 degree heat. I’m wilting badly, but for you, dear reader, I will press on.

 My view as I type

I left off near the end of my second Paris stint. The remainder of Paris was fun, if uneventful. More food and more wine. Instead of eating out every meal I’ve taken to doing as the French do, and buying bread, cheese and pastries and having them at home. Very delicious.

Sacre Coeur

As for sightseeing, the best was the Sacre Coeur, a beautiful cathedral atop a hill with panoramic views of Paris. I also went to St Germain and Montmartre, where I saw the cafés made famous by Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Picasso – Café de Flore and Les, Deux Maggots – as well as the Moulin Rouge. All fine, but a bit tacky and touristy. The area around the Moulin Rouge is filled with sex shops, so it feels like they’ve transplanted a piece of fin de siècle Europe into modern Fyshwick.

View of Paris from the Sacre Coeur

After Paris is was on to Dijon, centre of the Burgundy wine region. After the action of Paris, I was a little bored in Dijon, which is really just a moderate-sized country town and therefore a bit soporific. 

Park in Dijon

A few nice museums (with some very interesting medieval and renaissance pieces) and some cute old buildings, but not really enough to hold the attention for a week. But the wine was good.

 Musee des Beaux Arts

More museum-ing 

Apparently they had Brazilian Jiu Jitsu during the Renaissance, but hadn't quite worked the finer details of a proper Rear Naked Choke ...

I’m now in Lyon, which is a much bigger, and better, city. It has this amazingly cute old town, complete with tunnels through the building and hills that used to be used to smuggle resistance fighters during the Second World War. 

 Old Town in Lyon

A Traboule (tunnel) created by silk workers and later used by the resistance 

More cute old town

And the food is excellent: Lyon is supposed to be the culinary capital of France … which I guess, by implication, makes it the culinary capital of the world? Either way, I’m happily eating my way to an early death.

 The Rhone

St Just Cathedral

I’ve got a couple of days in left in Lyon and then I’m headed to Nice. And the beach!