After a lovely stop in the Dordogne, we took a few more elevation-gaining stops on our way to the next exchange in the French Alps. The first day required a long drive without much time for sightseeing along the way, or when we arrived in Lyon that afternoon. The next day, though, I was able to take my parents around on a tour of all the sights I saw on my visit with locals last summer.
We took the metro from our apartment on the outskirts to the handsome Hotel de Ville, then crossed the river into Vieux-Lyon and strolled its touristy shopping streets.
Next we took the funicular up to the Basilica of Notre Dame of Fourvière, nearby roman amphitheater, and that incredible viewpoint over the city of Lyon. Last time I was there during a mass, so this time we made sure to wait for the end of service to get a good look at the basilica’s mosaic interior.
Returning to river-level, we checked out the cathedral’s astronomical clock and one of Vieux-Lyon’s famous 'traboules,' hidden passageways transversing buildings and secret courtyards. Then, we had a couple experiences new to all of us. This city is also famous for its culinary traditions, especially the Bouchon (“cork”) restaurants serving very traditional French fare. We got a tasty prix-fixe lunch of Lyonese specialities that surprisingly didn’t leave us too over-full. On our way back to the metro, we looked through the Hôtel-Dieu, a grand building built as a hospital and repurposed for restaurants, shops, and a lovely courtyard to escape the city heat and hustle.
In the evening, we drove south to have dinner with the home exchangers who gave us that tour last year, and in whose home we stayed last time we visited the Alps. They showed us around Vienne, another town along the Rhône which is even older than Lyon and home to several Roman ruins.
The next day we didn’t have nearly so far to travel, only a couple hours to Annecy, France. This was one of the most touristy but picturesque stops on our route. Built along a river, a manmade canal, and the shore of Lake Geneva, the town was bustling with tourists and the lake crowded with boat traffic. We found a nice little swimming beach before checking into our hotel. Then, my parents and I explored the small old town on foot. I got out again with Nathan in the morning for a run along the lake, and some breakfast at the weekly outdoor market.
Sadly we had reached the day when we had to say goodbye to my parents and drop them at the Geneva airport for their flight home. Not to miss a nearby attraction, we detoured about ten minutes away from the airport to nerd-out at the free CERN visitors center. We didn’t have time for any tours, but we had fun with the interactive exhibits about the Large Hadron Collider, a particle accelerator with a 27km radius under Switzerland and France.
It is huge, but nothing compared to the ground we covered with my family, traveling from northern Spain to eastern France. We had a spectacular time, we saw so much and made many memories. Now we are back to the slightly more relaxed rhythm of traveling as a pair, next, to a new part of the French Alps!