A Weekend In Lyon

If you study a modern language at a British university, you’re normally required to take a “year abroad”. This is when you live in a different country for a year. You can either study or work. The aim is to return to university after the year and be fluent in your modern language. It’s also a greatly maturing year - at least it was for me. I lived in Reims, in the Champagne Region. I worked at a famous champagne house before Covid lockdowns kicked in. Afterwards, I was compelled to travel, read, and be idle. Some of my favourite memories were the solo trips I took around France - to Biarritz in the southwest and then cutting over the Spanish border into San Sebastian. There was something enlivening about walking alone from the station into a new place, just me and the smell of an unknown environment. I can still remember the air of Biarritz as I walked into the centre through the suburbs - a mixture of Atlantic Ocean with English Oak, laurel, and oleander.

Last weekend, I embarked on a weekend trip to Lyon to see a friend. The train from Paris to Lyon is fantastic for views of Arcadian landscapes. If you’re sitting on the right-hand side of the train looking west, you get a view of the Parc National Régional de Morvan - a protected area of woodlands, lakes, and traditional farmland. I remember seeing a striking ridgeline of hilly mountains and I dreamt about being able to explore it or to get to know it one day. The train also passed near Autun with its church rising over the city. A follower on Instagram told me that he has a second home there and that it’s a great place for Roman history.

I had been to Lyon once before with my parents. We had stopped there overnight en route to the Alps in December 2018. I remember going to the opera and the main soprano falling ill halfway through the show. “That was a rather long interval,” I said to myself before they announced the update on the loudspeaker. Our hotel was on a pretty central street and my parents’ room had a balcony looking onto Place de la République. Before we continued our drive south, I remember hiring a Lime scooter and zipping about a large square called Bellecour whose name I didn’t know back then. I look back fondly on this first memory of Lyon. It was just after my first term at university and I was digesting 8 weeks of new experiences. It was also part of a brief period where being on an electric scooter was seen as new and funny, instead of how it’s viewed nowadays - a sign of poor taste and a criminal record.

This time around, with my limited funds, I booked a hotel at a distance from the centre - in the suburb of Écully. I took a ten-minute metro through the hill that girdles the city followed by a 30-minute walk up onto higher ground. The hotel was in a very quiet neighbourhood and it had nice gardens and a positive, welcoming atmosphere. I was delighted to see that the building was a hybrid: a brutalist monstrosity placed around a traditional French building.

I left it soon enough and walked back over to the real city and waited for my friend outside the cathedral. She and I had first met in Japan on an internship in 2023. Specifically, we were introduced to Daikanyama, a beautiful Tokyo suburb that we visited during our first week induction. I remember chatting for a bit and thinking “She’s my sort of chap”. She struck me as intelligent, good-valued, interesting, and funny. She also understands sarcasm which is a very rare genetic mutation for Americans - reserved for the elite. A friendship was formed over the course of our month in Japan and we promised to maintain it - a manageable task given that she lived in France with her boyfriend.

Since our internship, I have seen her at Cambridge for a formal dinner and we’ve met a few times since I moved to Paris. I always promised to hop over to Lyon but I couldn’t nail down a particular weekend until the new year began.

But here I was at last! I remember stepping out of the metro en route to my hotel, smelling the air, and smiling at how different it was compared to Paris: fresh with notes of different climes and new possibilities. I looked around at the houses that were all warmly coloured - light orange, yellow or a hazy pink - all with distinctly reddish roofs. I asked myself why I hadn’t taken this trip sooner.

I met Angie on the square where I had once zoomed about on an e-scooter. We wandered through the city for the next two hours, chatting while she pointed out her favourite spots. We walked past her cherished bubble tea shop, the magnificent Céléstins theatre, and many charming squares. The city murmured and sheltered us as we reminisced about our month in Japan and spoke about our lives in two separate French cities. As it got closer to 6 pm, we tried to find a “bouchon” restaurant which serves traditional Lyonnais cuisine but every place we stopped at was fully booked. It was a Saturday night after all. We had to settle for a less traditional but equally delicious Indian restaurant. After the meal, I took an Uber back to my suburb while Angie rushed off to meet friends whom her boyfriend had welcomed at their house.

In the Uber, with time to myself and a view of Lyon out the window, the pieces of the city began to form a whole and some impressions gathered shape. It looked beautiful as we drove over Pont Pasteur and I had a view over the Saone, formerly known as the Arar in Roman times. On each bank, the city was lit up and there was a play of red and orange light in the reflections from the river and on the drops of rain that dripped down the passenger window. I decided I approved of the city and I smiled as I began speaking to my driver about Elon Musk and the politics ruining our world.

The next morning, I ran 12 km away from Lyon before sunrise. The route took me through Écully and into Les monts-d’Or, a little range of hills stretching northwest of the city. I got a glimpse of the wider countryside as the orange sun came over the horizon and cast its light onto the quaint roofs of village churches and expensive easterly-facing houses.

I met Angie and her boyfriend Cammy for brunch in the centre at 11 am. Brunch culture is rampant in the city, so I arrived early to secure a seat and read until they arrived. All three of us took the bacon pancakes, buttered and stacked with maple syrup, crispy onion, with a fried egg on top.

After we had eaten, they took me on a stroll up to one of their favourite spots, a park on the side of a hill, just below The Fourvière Basilica. In the park, a view opened up across the whole city. It was a perfectly blue day and at this high point, I could fit the whole layout into my line of sight: a vast plain of uniformly high buildings interspersed with three skyscrapers. Beyond the city, in the distance, you could see the Alps as well as its crown jewel - Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in Western Europe, over 150km away from where we stood. It was incredible to be seeing it at such a distance and Cammy and Angie, both STEM-trained, told me how it helps prove the curvature of the earth. Apparently, an object 200km away would have to be over 3300m to still stick out beyond the horizon. Thus, what we were seeing was the top 1000m of Mont Blanc, standing alone in all its majesty.

Right next to the park was a beautifully preserved Roman theatre. Lyon was called Lugdunum in Roman times and we looked at the ruins for around 5 minutes and took group photos to treasure the moment. They, perhaps, expected an erudite remark about its construction or how Caesar routed the pesky Gauls and brought civilisation and the arts, but nothing sprang to mind.

I soon left them and headed for a station outside of the city to catch the fast train back to Paris. You have to take a red tram called the Rhône Express that passes through tranquil suburbs. It’s 10 euros for a ticket and there’s always a conductor. I remember looking out of the window as we edged out of the city. The Roman theatre was very well preserved, I thought, but it didn’t hold my attention. When you’ve seen one, you’ve basically seen them all. None in France compare to those in Italy or Greece - especially the great theatre in Argos. I take that back, there’s a Roman theatre in Provence that’s pretty good. However, I wanted to see Lyon again. I am excited to return and become better acquainted with the city.