July 11, 2003: Lyon to Quimper
Jul. 23rd, 2003 12:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quislibetWe started with breakfast in our hotel -- café au lait (oh--MS Word fills in the accent for "é" in "café" automatically; neat) and croissants -- and began the stairway climb from Vieux Lyon up the Fourvière Hill, on the top of which were to be found, among other things, Roman ruins and a museum of archaeology. Even at about 10 AM it was already wicked hot and humid, and so the climb was not terribly pleasurable.
Eventually we reached the basilica at the top. The view from outside the church was fairly nifty
.
The view inside the church was rather gaudy, but you'll have to take my word for it.
The Roman amphitheatre and odeon were closed; they seemed to be setting up for some sort of rock concert. Entry to the archaeological museum was free by way of recompense, and we could see the theatre fairly well from various points inside the never-ending museum. You yourself can see it here in a low-resolution nausea-inducing javascript 360-degree panoramic view.
The Gallo-Roman museum, as I said, was large. I was looking forward to seeing the engraved tablet containing the text of a speech by the emperor Claudius on the admission of Gallic nobles to the Roman senate, and it didn't disappoint. From a classics-geek perspective, this is a Wicked Cool Thing: the Roman historian Tacitus, writing a little over a half-century later, gives a version of the same speech. Speeches in Greek and Roman histories were never meant to be direct quotations, but rather chances for the historians to try out their l33t rhetorical skillz drafting a speech they thought appropriate to the occasion. The survival of the Lyon tablet provides the only opportunity for Graeco-Roman history fans to compare a real speech with a(n) historian's version. In case you are wondering, Tacitus' version is much more succinct but more or less follows the basic gist. I skimmed the tablet until I found the part where Claudius, after a long digression, addresses himself by his full name and tells himself it's time to get to the point. I think that shiznit rocks.
This is getting long, so I will switch to highlights mode:
- Took the funicular back down to the bottom of the hill, the more rapidly to find lunch.
- Lunch: excellent salads, but the best was yet to come.
- Afternoon entertainment: the Resistance Museum (Centre d'Histoire de la Résistance et de la Déportation), which is not afraid to point out how popular the Vichy government was.
- Strolling back into Vieux Lyon, we saw:
- 1. A small protest march without signs and with an unintelligible chant. There were almost as many police in riot gear as protesters. One policeman was seven feet tall. A seven-foot-tall cop in riot gear, even a French one in a relaxed mood, is an imposing sight.
- 2. People gathered to see the Tour de France, but not the TdF itself, although it came through town that day. We didn't know the schedule and were too impatient of the heat to hang around waiting somewhere just to see some guys in tight pants on bicycles.
- 3. A ridiculous trio of vehicles promoting Terminator 3, thus:
Once back in the vicinity of our hotel, we strolled the theoretically pedestrian-only streets, happening upon a medieval clothing store and the most whimsical shoestore ever.
Across from the shoestore was the Bistrot du Palais, where fabulous moustaches are apparently a requirement for employment among the friendly waitstaff, and where we had some of the finest salads in all of Christendom. J. had the "Terre et Mer": greens with small steamed mussels and chunks of lightly deep-fried (can something be lightly deep-fried?) potatoes with an aioli dressing. I had a salad with greens, marinated eggplant (in garlic and vinegar), parmesan, duck confit, and apples. The menu package included a cheese course and a desert. I had to try the "cervelles de canut" ("silk-worker's brains"), which turned out to be a particularly salty boursin-like cheese. For dessert, I had a praline tart, a local specialty roughly filling the "pecan pie" niche (but why is it hot pink?). J. had a fresh raspberry tart with custard.
We returned to the hotel, checked out, got a taxi, and took a not-terribly-comfortable night-train to Brittany. But I wonder what all those cops with machine guns surrounding the guy in the wheelchair at the Lyon Perrache train station was all about.
At some point while we slept, J.'s grandmother died, although we were not to know that for several days yet.
Eventually we reached the basilica at the top. The view from outside the church was fairly nifty
.The view inside the church was rather gaudy, but you'll have to take my word for it.
The Roman amphitheatre and odeon were closed; they seemed to be setting up for some sort of rock concert. Entry to the archaeological museum was free by way of recompense, and we could see the theatre fairly well from various points inside the never-ending museum. You yourself can see it here in a low-resolution nausea-inducing javascript 360-degree panoramic view.
The Gallo-Roman museum, as I said, was large. I was looking forward to seeing the engraved tablet containing the text of a speech by the emperor Claudius on the admission of Gallic nobles to the Roman senate, and it didn't disappoint. From a classics-geek perspective, this is a Wicked Cool Thing: the Roman historian Tacitus, writing a little over a half-century later, gives a version of the same speech. Speeches in Greek and Roman histories were never meant to be direct quotations, but rather chances for the historians to try out their l33t rhetorical skillz drafting a speech they thought appropriate to the occasion. The survival of the Lyon tablet provides the only opportunity for Graeco-Roman history fans to compare a real speech with a(n) historian's version. In case you are wondering, Tacitus' version is much more succinct but more or less follows the basic gist. I skimmed the tablet until I found the part where Claudius, after a long digression, addresses himself by his full name and tells himself it's time to get to the point. I think that shiznit rocks.
This is getting long, so I will switch to highlights mode:
- Took the funicular back down to the bottom of the hill, the more rapidly to find lunch.
- Lunch: excellent salads, but the best was yet to come.
- Afternoon entertainment: the Resistance Museum (Centre d'Histoire de la Résistance et de la Déportation), which is not afraid to point out how popular the Vichy government was.
- Strolling back into Vieux Lyon, we saw:
- 1. A small protest march without signs and with an unintelligible chant. There were almost as many police in riot gear as protesters. One policeman was seven feet tall. A seven-foot-tall cop in riot gear, even a French one in a relaxed mood, is an imposing sight.
- 2. People gathered to see the Tour de France, but not the TdF itself, although it came through town that day. We didn't know the schedule and were too impatient of the heat to hang around waiting somewhere just to see some guys in tight pants on bicycles.
- 3. A ridiculous trio of vehicles promoting Terminator 3, thus:
Once back in the vicinity of our hotel, we strolled the theoretically pedestrian-only streets, happening upon a medieval clothing store and the most whimsical shoestore ever.
Across from the shoestore was the Bistrot du Palais, where fabulous moustaches are apparently a requirement for employment among the friendly waitstaff, and where we had some of the finest salads in all of Christendom. J. had the "Terre et Mer": greens with small steamed mussels and chunks of lightly deep-fried (can something be lightly deep-fried?) potatoes with an aioli dressing. I had a salad with greens, marinated eggplant (in garlic and vinegar), parmesan, duck confit, and apples. The menu package included a cheese course and a desert. I had to try the "cervelles de canut" ("silk-worker's brains"), which turned out to be a particularly salty boursin-like cheese. For dessert, I had a praline tart, a local specialty roughly filling the "pecan pie" niche (but why is it hot pink?). J. had a fresh raspberry tart with custard.
We returned to the hotel, checked out, got a taxi, and took a not-terribly-comfortable night-train to Brittany. But I wonder what all those cops with machine guns surrounding the guy in the wheelchair at the Lyon Perrache train station was all about.
At some point while we slept, J.'s grandmother died, although we were not to know that for several days yet.
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Date: 2003-07-24 11:21 am (UTC)2) Those cars are nuts...
no subject
Date: 2003-07-24 01:40 pm (UTC)