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Sarang lives in the yellow place that seems to have somehow stuck itself in
front of the river view of the adjacent church.
 
Views of churches from Sarang’s windows. One might even say these are
his religious views.
Sarang had to work our first day there, so he circled a bunch of places on a
map worth checking out. We decided to go to every food place first, though
Sarang had intended it to be more to go to the food places if we happened to
be in the area. We first went to the nearby macaron shop (not to be confused
with the far less tasty macaroons).
 
Macarons are hard to describe, but are exquisite and yummy. A light hard
meringue-like cookie shell with a creamy filling.
We walked along one of the rivers to our next destination, which was a
recommended ice cream parlor where we were treated to salted caramel ice
cream.
Our next destination was a bakery, but unfortunately it was closed for no
apparent reason other than they were being lazy and didn’t feel like
working (a theme we were to witness more than once). The bakery was adjacent
to this arty building.
 
Our next destination was a crepe place where we shared a crepe with nutella,
banana, Chantilly cream and hazelnut ice
cream. The French like their crepes simple so the guy couldn’t
understand that we wanted all of that so he gave us separate bowls for
everything. Zut alors! Sacre bleu! These Americans eat too much!
Yeaaaah, that’s what I’m talking about.
Oh I also got a fruit/veggie juice to make the meal healthy.
Burp.
Realizing that we may have consumed our entire day’s calories within
one hour, we hiked to the top of this hill.
A glitch in the matrix.
Cameras for all of the Carmels.
 
Place Colbert.
Not really sure what Carmel
is pointing at here.
The ugly graffiti street from the previous picture was just down the street
from this.
Carmel seemed to fit in well in Lyon.
Random Roman ruins.
 
These Roman ruins were and still are used for performances.
Random courtyard tower part of some apartments.
 
One of many plazas in Lyon (Place des
Terreaux).
Another plaza (Place des Jacobins).
Random cool gothic street art made out of foam.
We stopped in to this gourmet specialty food shop, where we loaded up on nice
things to take back with us.
We encircled this block 4 times looking for the Jewish synagogue, but could
not find it. Finally, we gave up and headed back to Sarang’s over the
nearby bridge. I decided to give it one more look back, and I saw a tiny
Jewish star in the circle atop the smallest building. Moral of the story:
give up, and you will succeed.
Red bridge.
 
We met up with Sarang for dinner at La Nek, starting first with an aperitif.
Starters (confusingly called entrees) consisted two types of duck salads and
gravalax, which is kind of like smoked salmon but not.
  
Mains included a fish with mustard sauce, another fish cooked in a
Lyon-specialty style (quenelle de brochet), and lamb.
The desserts were superb. There were two types of crème
brulee—pistachio and regular. There was a nice crumble that took
advantage of fresh fruits. And, the mille fille (thousand layer cake) melted
in the mouth.
NOTE- I have been told after writing this that I misspelled the French
words for thousand layer cake, which is actually millefeuille. Mille fille
means 1000 girls. A thousand apologies. :P
We walked down to the river side, where all the night life happens on boats.
A good idea to make use of a nice central spot.
These slides help the drunk people get down the stairs. Carmel demonstrates the slide (not the
drunkness).
 
The churches by Sarang’s place at night.
River at night.
The next day we took a train to Tain l’ Hermitage for chocolate and
wine tasting.
We grabbed lunch by the river.
We decided to go with healthy salads before hitting up the chocolate factory.
The world-famous chocolate factory of Valrhona.
We ate soooo much free chocolate before buying a few packs to go. This was
also the only shot I was able to take before they told me not to take any
more pics.
 
Next stop was the winery of Cave de Tain. When we arrived, there was a guy
leaving with a whole trailer filled with wine.
Pretty bottles.
Sarang and I decide where to start.
  
Give it a big sniff, drink up, then contemplate.
Let’s move up to more expensive tasting now.
  
Pour the glass, give it a twirl, and turn tasting receptors on to full
capacity.
Meanwhile, Carmel
brushes up on her literature.
 
We’re getting used to this.
Yes, I think we’ve found a keeper!
Gulp.
Where the grapes grow.
Victory!
We went to one more place for comparison.
Behind the scenes.
It was nice, but we had already bought a bunch from the previous place, which
was actually much better.
  
Back for dinner in Lyon at Maison
Villemanzy, I had carpaccio, an asparagus flan, and beef tartar.
 
 
And an array of desserts, most notable of which was the parfait at the bottom
right, which was so good we ordered it twice.
 
The next morning we went to the gourmet food market (Les Halles de Lyon).
These tarte aux pralines pastries were delicious.
Pretty.
My friend Muriel told me to eat this (les coussins) so here is my proof.
The smells of paella brought us over to this stall.
 
A few other French delicacies: frog legs and escargots. Note the
“extra” in the escargots sign.
Getting around town on the city bikes.
For lunch we grabbed some oysters and beer to eat by the river.
 
For our final hike, we climbed up the hill behind Sarang’s place to
check out the church on the hill.
Thanks Lyon!
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