Saturday - out and about

European Heritage Days - 17th and 18th September 2005
The doors and gates of Lyon’s heritage and that of its neighbouring urban districts will be opened especially for you.

Come and see these fine treasures of the past!

On the national theme of “I love my heritage”, you are invited to visit the museums, buildings, historical and archaeological sites, parks and gardens in your city…

With two thousand years of ever-changing history, with periods of magnificence and periods of turmoil, the metropolis of Lyon abounds with architectural evidence of its past, certain examples of which will only be open to the public during this weekend, so do not hesitate one single second!


So... after the Bagel Shop on Saturday, we decided to go up to the Croix-Rouse section - a section that is up on the hill just northeast of town. But what we had forgotten that this weekend was “European Heritage Days“ It is a weekend that happens once a year to allow the public to tour all the buildings free of charge. We “stumbled” upon the Mairie (or city hall) open-house and decided to go inside and take a look. The tour guy was SO nice. He immediately could tell that we weren’t French and started asking us lots of questions about if we were tourists, then how long we had been here, etc. He really went out of his way to show us around. We are always amazed at how nice everyone is over here. Any stereotypes out there of the French being rude, distant, or aloof are just downright false. We have seen none of that (except maybe by grocery store workers!)

In this particular Mairie, they had a lot of posterboards that detailed the history of the city. Very fascinating. Also inside was a wedding chapel - since all weddings here must be done by the civil authority and then also, if you want, … by the church. So these are some pictures taken inside.

After looking around there, we walked over to the market. It’s always fun and interesting going through the market on the weekend because you never know what you will find and talking to the vendors is a great way to practice French.

On this day I found a coffee vendor. He had lots and lots of bags of coffee from all over the world. I wanted to buy some but didn’t know what was good so I asked the vendor to recommend something. As we were talking to him, as usual, we were asked where we were from. He told us that he had spent 6 days in New York and all he could remember was that the coffee there was terrible! “jus de chaussette” or literally translated into “sock juice”.

And speaking of not knowing what you might find at the market, there were mattresses for sale on the street as well.