Days 2 - 3 The Grey Ghost meets Bum Groupies

Days 1,2 and 3 Oct. 15-17 2008

We have had the most extra-ordinary trip so far. The plane ride over was broken up with our stop over, in Amsterdam. I talked incessantly with Ted and the poor other souls that sat in the vicinity.

We all have our burdens to bear, I was theirs today.
We picked up our rental car at the Airport.


L'Esprit Gris (The Grey Ghost)

She is an Alamo/National owned Citroen C3 four door diesel.



She rides big, but she is puny. We have noticed, once again, that cars are puny here, but at 10 bucks a gallon, your thoughts turn puny when you go to buy a car, I would guess. The car is gray and we have dubbed her "l'Esprit Gris" - the Grey Ghost. She runs slick as snot (pardon the expression).

Marie-Hélène met us at the airport and so GPS did not receive the baptism in fire that I thought she would. But she had her coming out party the very next day.

Marie-Hélène and Gerhard are translators.


They spend a good time of their lives locked up in their (home) offices,



so their house has been an important part of their lives. The story of how they bought their house would bring tears to your eyes, but leave it to say, they feel very attached and invested in it. First it is huge as you might be able to see by the pictures.


They have more bedrooms and levels than I can keep straight. They have renovated many of them as the house is very old (ancient by American time standards) but more of a youngster when compared to really old houses in France and the rest of Europe.


Like a beautiful woman from any country, it is not polite to ask her actual age, maybe I can slip the question in sneakily like asking if the house had to survive WWI or the Renaissance. When I find out, I'll let you know.

Despite being quite tired, I was so happy to have a spectacularly cooked French meal at 9 p.m. We enjoyed, hors d'oeuvres, boeuf bourguignon, potatoes, and a magnificent plate of various types of French cheese.

We ate like Kings and Queens. The French know how to eat.



We slept very soundly, and I felt that I (at least) had made quite a good dent in the décalage (that is the 8 hour difference in time from Minnesota to France). We were awake by 9 am and came down to a marvelous breakfast of croissant, brioche, cheeses, meat, butter, coffee or tea, which we sat in front of and talked over the top of for some time.

Marie-Hélène had enjoyed a bit of time off from her job, as nothing rolled over her desk for a week or so before we came, but just as our arrival was imminent she received more work than she could shake a stick at.

Ted and I are trouble makers, who have no difficulty at all finding trouble to get into on our own. We made poor MH stay home and work as we darted off to local parts unknown.

The nicest thing about traveling with seasoned mates and with no agenda, is the fact that there is NO possibility of getting lost, or being upset in taking the scenic route to a "possible" destiny that we had chosen from our list of "points of interests" assembled before we left the US.

We were at first aimed at the Traboules that I mentioned in a previous post, but MH, after watching me descend 2 flights of stairs at her house, she showed us pictures and descriptions of what we would be getting into if that was our first choice of places to visit.



Have you ever considered running or even walking up the stairs to the first level of the Tour Eiffel? Don't try it if you are not in terrific physical shape. You will probably be panting for the rest of your time there instead of enjoying the view, let alone trying your French out on any fellow visitors.














(BTW, Lyon has its own Tour
but it is only the top half.)








Well, counting the stairs to get from Point A to Point B (and it is all or nothing -





as you have to go the whole way to catch any sort of transportation to get back to Point A where you left your car), Ted and decided "that ain't worth. We'll just enjoy the pictures."




Since Ted didn't remember going there, I suggested that both an interesting site and a place to get a view of the whole city was at Lyon's version of Notre Dame called Fourvières




It is a majestic cathedral poised high on a falaise and visible from many vantage points in the city (and thus able to see the points easily as well).



The area coming up to the cathedral includes many one way roads and a few cobble stone ones as well.








Fourvières

Very pittoresque and charming,


even the floors were extraordinary.




Visiting Fourvières was a good way to re-acclimate oneself to France's wonderful offerings of residences, roads and views.













We took many pictures.



Then, we took off for some other Cathedral (St. Jean) with some Roman ruins attached for more attraction to tourists. I guess chronologically it would have to be the other way around Roman Ruins first, Church later.

The GPS had her difficulty getting is to the spot. We visited many areas while the GPS wound us up and down some very very tiny streets only to come to a dead end, a parking lot or two away from a Church of some sort.



There was this sort of thing, a kind of cone, but a round cone. Okay a round cylinder that barred one from going further on the road. It was about 20 inches tall and was red and white striped. It looked mysteriously like it had risen out of the ground.



So, off we went again, finding a new way to skin the cat, and arrive at our "intended" destination.

La Cathedrale de St. Jean


After coming at it a few ways, we finally arrived at the church square (place de l'église) and very strangely found vacant one of the only two parking place on the whole square. Ted and I know that there is definitely something wrong here, but there were no handicapped or no NO parking signs, so we locked Ghost up and made off for the cathédrale.

Two things caught my attention crossing the square past the fountain centered there. First, I noticed a parking lot with a few cars in it, on the other side of a barrier in the road. The barrier was a cone; okay a round cylinder that barred one from going further on the road into that parking lot. It was about 20 inches tall and red and white striped. It looked mysteriously like it had risen out of the ground. I realized that our first "failures" to reach the destination had all ended up on the other side of the "cone".

Secondly, we noticed a group of "different" people at the fountain. Among them was a clown.

He wasn't really a clown I realized upon closer inspection,
he was a child molester.





He dressed in very strange attire which seemed to attract local females in their late teens or maybe early twenties.

They were swarming around him like moths to a light at night. He was smoking as were his buddies - a couple of more obvious bums, seated on the ground with white bags of booze and sacks of clothing or other objects. They were probably sitting because they could no longer stand. You can see in the pics that they were up to no good with those young'uns. But, what is your role in life? To warn stupid girls about their choices, or to visit Roman ruins and Churches called St. Something? Today it was the later.

St Jean was a very old church. It had a mysterious air to it. As we entered, a woman seemed to be beckoning us to follower her. She was mumbling something, but I couldn't hear what she said, so we just followed.



When we got to the back of the church, a group was starting to form. The woman we followed took a seat as did the others.

In front of them (and us) was a clock.

It had figurines and doodads placed on various levels of its mechanism.

I then asked the "leader" woman when the clock would "move". She said the "event" takes place only twice a day, and we would get to see it in three minutes.


Sure enough, at noon, on the nose, the figurines started their movements and some retreated while new ones emerged from the recesses of the ornate clock.


What a treat! We were lucky to see it, according to Marie-Hélène.



























Some of the Roman Ruins could have been German ruins or even party ruins. But were interesting from the standpoint of imagining what they maybe once were.








We returned to our car through " La Place" past an ever growing group of bum groupies.
The car was as we left it - no marks or break-ins,

The Grey Ghost started right up and we pulled out to the Church square entrance and to a stop light but there in the middle of the driveway the very one we had used to enter the square,
there was a cone,
round cone, okay a round cylinder that barred one from going further on the road. It was about 20 inches tall and red and white striped. It looked mysteriously like it had risen out of the ground. In fact, it had risen out of the ground and was now barring our way out!
I was shocked and Ted and I started our strategizing on how we were going to by-pass it and escape. We had no interest in becoming bum "groupies." or staying there all day for any reason.
The Rising Cone

What we didn't notice while contemplating our dilemma was the stop light on the other side of the "cone". The light had been red for the entire time we had been fussing over our predicament, but tout d'un coup, the light changed and "cone" receded back into its hidden spot, and became even with the pavement.

We took off like bats out of hell.


I am still not sure if that the light controlled the "cone", or if the man looking out the window at the official looking building running on one side of the driveway pushed a magic button, but we did not have to spend the rest of our lives in that square.


This is the Bum, not the man with the control button.

After St. Jean, we selected a couple of other sites, visited them and looked for more mischief.

It was time to visit the countryside.

We knew we couldn't get lost, so we ventured into the recesses of the unknown, and found ourselves at

A Military Base
Disguised as a Cow Pasture

Those military guys are dumb.

Did they really believe that no one would want to see the lush countryside of beautiful France.
Mais non!


We went by the back roads and back yards of various towns and country properties, washing with tree-lined avenues, pastures, and country estates.

Bucolic is a good descriptor. But after we ran into the military installation, we thought we took enough chances of getting arrested and being late.





Late for what? We didn't know. But we rushed "home" as Marie-Hélène said she had a special surprise for us and we had to be back by 5:30 or so.




Anna, her daughter, was not invited to the special thing, so I imagined it to be the Lyon form of the Folies Bérgères or some other adult type spectacle. Although, if you know Marie-Hélène, that seemed quite dubious.


Well, we have never been too keen on "adult entertainment" and MH knows just the right thing for a Wedding Anniversary Celebration.

Marie-Hélène let us drive, and she directed it by memory and dead reckoning to the edge of the Saône , or it could have been Le Rhône. - It's hard to remember as the La Saône meets Le Rhône in Lyon, requiring you to go over two bridges to get from one side of the city to the other.

We arrived, parked and went down to the boats. There we searched and finally found the vessel, it was a

Bateau Mouche


a sightseeing boat just like they have on the Seine in Paris!

The surprise was a dinner cruise!

The food was very good, but the sights and company were incomparable.

The ride lasted for over an hour and a half...

and gave a continuing commentary in both French and English (for poor Ted)

describing the names, history, and present uses of various buildings, squares and churches.

This is right up our alley,
and we enjoyed it thoroughly.

That night we had to pack up to be on our way to the south,
but I felt as snug as a bug in a rug chez Marie-Hélène
(like we have on MANY previous occasions)
and although she came to visit only a couple of years ago
(for her second time in Minnesota) she arrived toute seule!

We are pushing hard for them all Marie-Hélène, Gerhard, Lisa and Anna-Banana to grace our home with their lovely presence aussitôt que possible. You'll have to meet them. You would all love them as much as we do.