Two weeks ago, my friend Danny came to see me in Lyon. I like having visitors. Friends from back home, or from somewhere else in the world. It forces me to see Lyon again through the eyes of a tourist. After 15 months this beautiful city became rather ‘normal’ to me, as you can read in my blog about being ‘Spoiled’.
Danny arrived Friday night at 8pm, so I picked him up after work. Since Dutch dinnertime is at 6 pm, he arrived pretty hungry. We took a tram into town, and then walked a bit of a touristical route. We took the bridge over the Rhône, walked to Bellecour and then in the direction of a lovely street filled with restaurants. We checked the menu’s and concluded pasta would be the best option for that night. We sat down at ‘La Route des Pâtes’. Even though we were both craving pasta, we both went for a noodle dish. It didn’t quite meet our expectations, but at least our hungry tummies were filled up :-). I’m not always a big fan of dessert – really! – but the restaurant was advertising with there specialty; chocolate ravioli. It sounded a bit strange, so I wanted to try it. We ordered one – to share. With two glasses of wine – not to share. It was exactly what I needed! I’ve been very tired, because the summer is very, very busy at work. Also I worked evening shifts for two weeks and this Friday I had to change all of a sudden to waking up early for a morning shift – I was having a hard time.
The chocolate ravioli was made of fresh pasta with a bit of chocolate in the dough. The best part was the inside! They put real chocolate on the inside, which melted perfectly. Eating the melted chocolate just warmed my heart! The ravioli layed in a warm, white chocolate sauce. All together, it was delicious.
Even though before we decided not to do anything crazy, our meal gave me the energy to have one drink in the pub. Yes, we really just wanted to go for one drink!
Until I walked in and spotted a friend from Grenoble, who I would never have expected to see there. The encounter caused us to have a second drink. When this friend left, another good friend decided to show up. He brought a German friend and her niece – two lovely people! When the clock turned almost twelve, we had to decide. Take the tram or stay late and walk home? We went for the last option.
Which turned out not to be the best decision ever, the next morning :-). After trying to regain forces, at some point we had to leave the house to get some food. I don’t remember why and how, our main goal was a croissant or a pain au chocolat, but along the road we changed it into a pizza? Even though we were still in doubt, a sudden rain shower did force us to run into the pizzeria, which was close at that moment.
The pizza’s were great, but as a breakfast maybe a bit too heavy. My stomach wasn’t too happy about it. We wanted to check out the cute shops in Vieux Lyon, but with an upset stomach to me it seemed a better idea to leave the small street, crowded with (slow) tourists. We took a stroll alongside the Saône and ended up on Place des Terreaux. The idea was to get a drink on the terrace, to be able to sit down for a moment. Unfortunately the sky broke loose while we sat there, and after a while it became clear that it was going to rain for a long time. It rained very hard, it was cold and sometimes the wind blew raindrops in our way. When we got really annoyed, we decided to take a run. Direction: cocktailbar!
The cocktailbar we aimed for was closed, so we ended up in another one. Not too bad! We loved the cocktails at ‘La Halle de Bourse’, they brought us back to a tropical, summer vibe. Out of the rain and cold, they raised our spirit back to where it should be.
Only disadvantage was the price. After two rounds the rain was gone, so we could go back on the streets. We had to go back to the pub from the night before, because a friend would come there later to celebrate her birthday. On our way we bought 3 red roses, in name of her boyfriend who couldn’t be there at that moment. We also got a box of macarons, she never ate those, even though she also lives in France for quite some time.
Packed with flowers and macarons we sat 
down in the pub and once again enjoyed our drinks and our company. Ofcourse, Danny and I had to take one round of Baileys, because we started a tradition of sharing a glass of Baileys when I’m in the Netherlands.
For dinner we had planned to get some take away, but because it was a birthday we were celebrating we found it more appropriate to go to a restaurant. Once again, it was raining. Running between the raindrops we went to an Indian restaurant, where we all could find something we would like. I got a great glass of Coconut lassi, yum! – with a vegetable curry and basmati rice.
When we got home, we were exhausted. As two old people, we went to bed almost straight away. Also because on Sunday Danny would leave again and we wanted to be able to enjoy a few hours on the last day.
In my neighbourhood there aren’t a lot of boulangers unfortunately, but I do live rather close to a few touristic hotspots. Even though we were hungry, we walked to the Gallo-Roman theater and the Basilique the Fourviere. Danny took pictures, while I lighted a candle, because it was the third death day of my beloved grandmother.
Time flew by and apparently in August a lot of boulangers are closed, so we hurried to ‘Les Halles de Paul Bocuse’. A kind of markethall. Fortunately the cheese shop ‘Les Mons’ was open and we could enter the ‘restaurant’. This day our Brunch consisted of a cheese platter and a glass of Morgon – red wine. De-li-cious! This really makes me happy.
It was a great ending to Danny’s weekend in Lyon.
The train station was very close, after our cheese platter we went there directly and said goodbye to each other. Great weekend! Hope to see you again soon, Danny :-).
