Heading to Lyon at the end of the month so looking forward to your report. Not a lot out there on Lyon.

I'd better keep going then...

yestravel - if you need any pointers on specifics, or anything in Lyon in general just shout.

Part 2: Some things don't change

As mentioned, the Confluence area of Lyon has been massively redeveloped and turned what was a very grotty, industrial area of Lyon into a shiny and new development of shops, restaurants, flats and businesses.

The majority of the shops are the standard shopping centre staples, however there a couple of independent places selling items you can't find everywhere and a few restaurants (most of which I can say you can safely avoid).

Despite knowing Lyon like the back of her hand, due to the redevelopment, my wife took a couple of wrong turns on the way to the hotel but after a fashion we found the underground car park, parked up in the secure section reserved for the hotel and took the lift up to reception.

I'm not usually a fan of big, corporate hotels but I have to say that this one was probably the best of its type I've ever stayed in. The hotel has a view over the Saone, no passing traffic, has decent sized rooms and a perfectly serviceable bar and restaurant. For those that are interested, there's no charge for two children under 16 sharing your room and they have a play area tucked around the corner from reception which is a godsend when it's aperitif o'clock. The receptionist gave each of my kids a soft Barbapapa toy, to which my younger one became very attached over the duration of our stay.

We quickly found out why the hotel could offer such cheap rates and that was because we felt as if we were some of the only people in the entire place. It can only be a few months old (it still smelled new) but it felt a little like a ghost town at times. In fact this could be said of the entire Confluence area.

We went for a stroll the evening we arrived and saw only a handful of people inside or out. As the area around the hotel is pedestrianised, it's great for kids as there are water gardens, bridges over inlets, interesting buildings and installations all over the place and they can run around to their heart's content. Lots of the restaurants and bars were closed for the evening at 8.30 and the ones that were open were certainly not doing a roaring trade. One place we walked past had a single table occupied.

We headed into town for a quick bite (before the kids started eating each other) and on the way spotted quite a few reminders of the kind of area the Confluence used to be. They were mostly solitary, not wearing suitable clothes for the season and looking expectantly at every passing car...

After a very quick stop at Pizza Pino on Place Bellecour, we headed back to the room and my wife and I steeled ourselves for the 7.30 wake up call which was coming, whether we wanted it or not.

It's a quiet day at work so I'm ploughing on;

Part 3: Sugar and spice and too many things nice

After a light and leisurely breakfast (we had to save space for another family lunch where we would be force fed foie gras (oh the irony), smoked salmon, a large piece of roast meat, fruit, cheese and dessert, we went to the Sucriere (http://www.lasucriere-lyon.com/) to have look at the exhibition that was on - L'art contemporain raconté aux enfants - by an Italian artist I must admit to never having heard of, Gianni Colosimo.

The basic premise of the exhibit was the artist's reworking of famous (notorious?) works of contemporary art, angled towards children. Works by (amongst others) the Chapman brothers, Koons, Duchamp and Catellan were re-intepreted to appeal to children. As with all exhibitions, some of the pieces were (I felt) more successful than others but the thing I struggled with was that visitors were not allowed to touch any of the exhibits. At any art exhibition I've been to that is aimed at children (and indeed some that weren't) there were always a couple of items for the children to play/interact with and spark their interest.

This exhibition quickly turned into torture for the kids as despite the gallery being full of stuffed toys, dolls, robots, pushchairs and the like, none of it could be touched. I enjoyed the exhibit but would only take older children (mine are both under 5).

Following the aforementioned lunch, we went into town to work off some of the calories by walking around and visiting seemingly all of the children's clothes shops in the centre of Lyon.

Between the large pedestrianised areas of the centre of Lyon (Rue de le Republique, Place Bellecour, Rue Victor Hugo, the wide banks of the rivers and multiple other squares) which are again great for kids, there are lots of small streets and passageways with shops selling things you never even knew you needed as well as more standard stuff.

After the customary visit to Cyrillus on Rue Edouard Herriot, Pom d'Api (Rue Emile Zola) and Arthur et Lola (Passage de l'Argue) where we obviously found the last shops where the children's shoes are still made by magical elves, if the price is anything to go by, we had a couple of goes on the double-decker merry go round before heading to the big wheel on Place Bellecour.

I believe the big wheel is only temporary, but the views from the top of its 60m height are pretty spectacular. We were lucky enough to have a clear day and could clearly see the Alps (as well as the whole of Lyon of course) from our pre-health and safety bucket, with nothing but a couple of chains and the integrity of the clasp at the top to guarantee safe passage on our revolutions.

Back on terra firma, we deposited the kids with their grandparents and prepared to meet up with some friends who were back in their hometown for les fetes. As always, we had no plans or reservations and would see where the evening would take us.

Enjoyable TR. I look forward to reading more. Thank you!

I love your sense of humor. The trip report is also very helpful to me. I will be flying to Lyon from Frankfurt and headed immediately to Arles. On my return to Lyon I will overnight before an early flight out. I would welcome any suggestion.
Thank you for posting.

Enjoying this. U gave me some restaurant suggestion on my post asking for places to eat in Lyon.

Thanks for sharing your family "vacation! I am enjoying your TR and looking forward to the rest of it.

A sweet report, and well written.

I have stayed in a few "modern ghost towns" myself so I can imagine perfectly well the area around the Novotel. You're lucky to know Lyon well and how to find the "real city" -- sometimes visitors wind up in a hotel area like that and don't have the slightest clue where to go from there.

Thanks for the kind words all.

kerouac - as always, you're absolutely right. We saw a few families wandering around the area slightly aimlessly and we could only hope that they decided to venture further afield.

Part 4: A stumble down memory lane

We met our friends at a bar called Voxx (Rue d'Algerie) for an aperitif or two and to catch up on all the news. Voxx is a bar we used to go to when we all lived in Lyon and still attracts an eclectic but mostly younger crowd. The barman was the same guy who used to turf us out at closing time when we lived in Lyon all those years ago, and I was pleased to see that the music still comes courtesy of a single turntable and a selection of soul and funk records.

After wetting our whistles, we walked along Rue d'Algerie towards Place Sathonay, looking for somewhere to eat. In case there's anyone out there that hasn't put their turntable up in the loft and listens to all their music on an iDevice, there's a great music shop on Rue d'Algerie called Sofa Disques which has an amazing (if somewhat pricy) selection of 33 and 45 rpm records covering every genre imaginable. I'd pick up a couple of Francoise Hardy albums for my father later on the week, just so I could see him looking wistfully at the sleeves and imagining things that probably aren't safe for a family audience.

We arrived at Place Sathonay at the edge of the Croix Rousse area which is a very pretty little square, surrounded by small shops and restaurants which heaves in the summertime and where people play petanque late into the night.

We decided on the Cafe de la Place to eat as it was fairly busy and we all fancied something lighter than we'd get in the Bouchons. There is a very good Bouchon on Place Sathonay which is handily called Le Sathonay and has hundreds of corks in the window (is this the Lyonnais equivalent of having pictures on the menu?) so it really is difficult to miss. In the summer, when you're eating outside, looking over the square and drinking enough rosé to drown a cow it really is a wonderful spot.

Anyway, back to the task at hand. We had a couple more post-apertif drinks whilst we perused the blackboard to decide on what to have and as the rest of my party went for salads to start followed by variations on fish I chose the only dish that couldn't be described as light. It was a tournedos steak with a nut crust, topped with a half a St. Marcellin cheese. How could I say no?

In a concession to my arteries (and the beef) I asked for it without the crust and the glistening piece of beef the size of a cobble stone came out of the kitchen perfectly rare and wearing a wig of slowly melting cheese. Delicious. It came with gratin dauphinois and something leafy and green (which I gave to my wife) and had me all aglow. We accompanied our meal with a couple of pichets of Cote du Rhone and conversation with the nearby tables and owner of the cafe.

As it was approaching midnight, we thought we better find a bar to continue our evening and headed back down Rue d'Algerie, across Pont de la Feuillee (and the Saone), towards Vieux Lyon and a literal and metaphorical trip back in time.

Part 4: Cont.

We approached Vieux Lyon with (as always) Notre Dame de Fourviere looking down on us from high up on her perch and I suddenly felt like a student again. The number of times I crossed the bridge between the Old Town and the streets that lead up to Place des Terreaux with all their attendant bars and clubs probably doesn't bear thinking about. Actually, it does bear thinking about, and I do it it often whilst reminiscing about all the shenanigans I used to get up to.

As we are all just visitors to Lyon these days, we decided to go to a bar where my wife and her friends used to hang out to drink and practice their English (I don't believe them either) and where I spent many an evening drinking and trying to take home French girls with a soft spot for Englishmen (at least I'm honest).

The Smoking Dog in Rue Lainerie is an 'English' Pub pretty much in name only. Other than a few drinks that aren't that common in Lyon and premier league football on the TV at the weekend, the clientele is almost entirely French. Funnily, I think the fact that it's an 'English' Pub gives people a bit more free reign as it's often a lot rowdier than the more typical French bar/pub.

I love this place. The walls are lined with books, which you're free to borrow or just browse whilst you're there, the crowd is always friendly and there's pretty much a guaranteed good atmosphere. It's at the start of the pedestrian section of Vieux Lyon so is great in summer when you can spill out onto the cobblestones and watch the local fauna in various states of inebriation.

After an olympic-level reminiscing session, the bell rang for last orders (1am already?) and as we were all seemingly still dehydrated we went around the corner to The Fleming's Pub (apostrophe appears by special order of the management) on Place du Change. Open until 3am, it's rough around the edges and usually attracts a well lubricated crowd and this evening was no exception.

We chatted more, met some friendly people (the beauty of some of them brought back many happy memories of many similar nights on Rue St. Jean) and decided we hadn't all changed that much since we used to do this 4 or 5 times a week back in the day.

We were all having a marvellous time as it approached 3am. As I went to answer a call of nature only to discover the urinal actually overflowing with vomit, I took this as a sign to bring proceedings to an end. We ambled/strolled (strambled?) over to Place des Terreaux to the taxi rank and after a bit more chat with the folks in the queue climbed into our chariot back to the hotel.

There were still a fair few unaccompanied ladies who must also have been waiting for taxis on our route back, but as my wife wasn't as keen as I to find out if any of them needed a lift, we called it a night.

We had a lie-in (!) to look forward to in the morning and although I wasn't to know it at the time, we would also have dinner in a place that if Man Vs. Food existed in France, would be the first restaurant on the list.

Part 5: My kingdom for some horse

Rising at 9am following our lie-in (yes, that constitutes one in our house) we shot over to pick up the kids so we could take the older one ice skating on the temporary rink on Place Ambroise Courtois.

This is another lovely, little Lyonnais square directly opposite the Institut Lumiere (http://www.institut-lumiere.org/) and just around the corner from the site where the Lumiere brothers shot the first ever film (http://www.institut-lumiere.org/english/hangar/hangar.html). During the summer months there are free open-air film screenings (in cinemascope) on a first come, first served basis on the square.

After another long family lunch and more shopping in the afternoon, we caught up with some friends for aperitif and arranged to go out to dinner later that evening. After a bit of uhming and ahing we agreed to go Carnegie Hall, a restaurant my wife and I had heard of, but had never been to. The difference between this version and the version in New York could not possibly be more pronounced.

Carnegie Hall in Lyon (http://www.carnegie-hall-69.com/) is a carnivore's fever dream. Situated near what used to be the meat market for Lyon (which has since moved to Corbas) you are greeted at the entrance by the sight of multiple sides of beef in a glass-walled cold storage unit. The decor and furniture are functional and nothing more and look like they haven't been updated since man discovered fire.

Where the magic happens is in the menu. It's dirt cheap and delicious. They have everything a carnivore could want, including and entire section of the menu devoted to horse. As tempted as I was, I couldn't pass up the opportunity of a rib of beef for €21 which came with gratin dauphinois and a grilled tomato for (as far as I'm concerned anyway) decoration. The waiter asked how I'd like it cooked and only gave two options; "rare" or "blue". I chose the slightly more cooked option and awaited my fate...

When the waiter brought our plates out, I thought there'd been a mistake and he'd brought the rib of beef for two people (on the menu at €38). The piece of meat was enormous and reminded me of the Old 96'er from the John Candy film The Great Outdoors. After the waiter assured me that this was indeed a portion for one, I set about my task. Although huge, the meat was tender, delicious and perfectly cooked. I didn't quite make it through the whole thing (I saved some space for dessert in the form of lemon meringue pie), I have to say that as far as bang for your buck goes in Lyon, this place has to be near the top of the list.

We finished our night off at the Ninkasi (http://www.ninkasi.fr/fr/ninkasi-gerland.html) a bar/club/brasserie (almost next door to Carnegie Hall) which actually brews their own beer. We called it a night when a young woman with some prominently positioned tattoos became a little infatuated with yours truly (they must brew the beer extra strong in this place) and wouldn't take no for an answer, even when I pointed out the woman she was trampling to get to me was my wife.

The following day was new year's eve, so we were all grateful of a slightly earlier night as we steeled ourselves to brave the butchers, bakers and candlestick makers (along with seemingly the rest of Lyon) to get provisions for the following night's festivities. And I thought shopping in Oxford Street at Christmas was bad...

This report is great -- making lots of notes for our visit next month.

Glad it's of some use to someone! Don't worry, there's only one more instalment to go, which I should hopefully get 'round to at some point soon.

Your TR is very helpful. I have a question for you -- do you have any suggestions for a moderately priced (around €100 for 2) restaurant for dinner on a Sunday? Something close by the Vieux Lyon where we will be staying would be great. Thanks

Sunday evenings can still be a bit tricky in Lyon for dinner and there are plenty of ropey bouchons (or at least bouchon-type restaurants) in Vieux Lyon that are best avoided.

For a safe bet you could try Le Sud (one of Bocuse's brasseries) which is just a short walk from Vieux Lyon (about 15 mins) on the other side of Place Bellecour. It's on place Antonin Poncet and you can pretty much guarantee a decent meal.

I think they have a couple of set menus (usually around €30 and €50 a head) so you should be able to get out for under €100 including wine if you go for the cheaper option.

Sounds good -- are reservations needed? and if so how far in advance does one need to make them? thanks!

It's probably safest to reserve, but you probably shouldn't need to do so more than a few days in advance.

It shouldn't be a problem to reserve on the Friday for the Sunday (unless there's a conference in town). You mentioned you're staying in Vieux Lyon. You're not at the Cour des Loges by any chance are you?

Nice to read a different report on Lyon, and interesting to hear how the Confluence has turned out. Used to be such a grim part of the city. I actually translated a lot of documentation on the development project back when I lived in Lyon (almost ten years ago now!)
And we too are fans of the Novotel chain when travelling with our kids. You always know what you're getting, and the family rooms are a good size. My girls love staying there too, as they always get given a little toy or game when they arrive.

Thanks for the info. We're staying in an apt here www.lalogedesavocats.com

Hi hanl - you obviously did a good job, as the transformation is nigh-on spectacular!

I think that the Confluence is still very much a work in progress, as the combination of inhabited buildings and unfinished paths/landscaping are an interesting combination...

No problem yestravel. You've picked a great spot with that flat. If you're staying over a weekend, be sure to check out the market on the Quai des Celestins on the other side of the Saone, which you can reach via the pedestrian bridge that's pretty much at the end of the street you'll be staying on.

If I get a quiet moment, I'll finish up my report with a visit to Les Halles (which are also worth a visit if you have the time and inclination).

topping for the Aussie looking to know if Lyon is worth a visit. This report offers some very good ideas about the city.

Yes, we will be there on the weekend, so will certainly check out the market--thanks!

Great Stuff, reading with great interest. I think my Corsica trip for the week is off and we are rethinking. Lyon is now on the agenda.

Schnauzer

Jay_G, enjoyed your report a lot. You said to shoot any questions, so hoping you know this or a web site which could tell me. Directions from St. Exupery Aeroport to 22 Rue Roposte in the 3rd? I think a shuttle to the train. Where in the airport do you pick up the shuttle? Where do you get on the train? Which train stop in/near the 3rd? Taxi or walk from train stop? Costs? Thanks a bunch if you (or anyone else) has this info.

Decided to not be so lazy and think I figured it out on my own - pretty easy. Looks like just take the Rhonexpress from Gare TGV station at the airport to Gare Part Dieu and a few blocks walk. Is it easy to get to the TGV station at the airport? Shuttle from the terminals? Would this be better or take a shared van service for about $13.00?

Where's J-G and the rest of his report as promised!!!!

Still awaiting JayG

Apologies schnauzer! The post-Christmas lull at work is well and truly over. I'll try to get the last few bits up over the next couple of days before I forget it all...

Sassafras - The TGV station at the airport is actually joined to the terminal by a foot bridge, so I imagine you're looking at a five or ten minute walk to get to the Rhonexpress.

Regarding the shared van service, I'd say it depends on how many of you (and what ages) are travelling. The Rhonexpress has discounts for certain age groups and I believe it's free for children up to a certain age. It's also most likely going to be quicker than a van, particularly if you run into traffic or have to make multiple stops.

The Rhonexpress is also staffed, so there'll be someone on board who could most likely answer any last minute questions you may have and point you in the right direction once you get to Part Dieu. Personally, I'd go with the express. You'll have room to move about on-board as well, which may be welcome depending on how long your flight into Lyon will have been...

Part 6: So much of a good thing

We woke on new year's eve ready to face the hordes all buying their provisions for the evening's festivities. In previous years, we've pre-ordered what we needed in order to be let in to whichever party we'd been invited to and found it made absolutely no difference in beating the queues. This being France, 'queue' is a very loose term at the best of times.

This year we decided to treat ourselves (and our hosts) by going to Les Halles (http://www.en.lyon-france.com/Discover-Lyon/Wine-and-Gastronomy/Les-Halles-Paul-Bocuse) to get what we needed.

This place really is wonderful. If Lyon is the capital of French Gastronomy, then Les Halles is its parliament. The finest of everything you could want is sold here (to both the public and the best local restaurants) and the only difficulty is not spending the GDP of a small baltic state within its walls.

We picked up a fillet of beef from Maurice Trolliet, then moved on to what should be a pilgrimage for anyone who likes cheese, Mere Richard. Her St. Marcellin is legendary and she supplies it to restaurants throughout France, who often take pains to mention the fact on their menus. Whilst I joined the other pilgrims waiting to be served, my wife popped off to buy "something small for dessert" and sharpened her elbows before diving into the crowds.

About half an hour later, just as I made it to the counter, my wife returned with a selection of macarons, petits fours, chocolates and pastries all beautifully wrapped and all from different places. I asked how on earth she'd managed to do that whilst I'd been fending off little old ladies trying to retain my place in the queue. As always she just smiled her enigmatic gallic smile, stated that she'd forgotten to get flowers and melted into the crowd.

By the time I'd finally got my hands on Mere Richard's finest (take your mind out of the gutter!) my wife had returned with a perfect bouquet, and we could extricate ourselves from the 'foule'.

At every butcher, chocolatier, wine merchant and fishmonger we passed on the way to pick up our kids, the same scenario was being repeated. Queues out of the doors and along the pavements. Any place without a queue you knew couldn't be any good.

Kids collected, we had another wander around the centre of town (because you can never do enough shopping apparently) and picked up some sweets at the confectioner in the Passage de l'Argue that resembled the french dinner staple of petits pois with lardons, for the children that would be at the evening's party.

We shot back to the hotel for a quick shower and change then pointed ourselves in the direction of the party, where my host had assured me there would be Chateau Margaux waiting to accompany the beef. Suddenly the travails of the morning faded into insignificance.