Only Lyon

Bonjour mes amis, I hope everybody is doing okay. We are still in confinement, lockdown, in Lyon. In my previous blog I talked about the new confinement and that we can only move within 10 km.

Luckily, I can still go to my internship even though it’s more than 10 km away. In the weekends we must stay near Lyon but, that’s not so bad because this city is just amazing. We are still so happy that we’re here and that we can have this experience. I know some people are really struggling in times like these, and I just wanted to say: Hang in there, take care of yourself and the people around you and stay safe.

“It might be stormy now, but rain doesn’t last forever”

In my previous blog I talked about the first three weekends during the confinement and the things we did. In this blog I’m going to talk about the next three weekends in confinement, and hopefully the last ones. Since Monday the third of May 2021 we can move freely again over whole France and we are excited to visit some more stunning places further than 10 km of our apartment.

There is still a couvre-feu, curfew, and the bars and non-essential shops are still closed but I’m so excited that we can discover again. If you know me then you know that I hate it to feel trapped. When they announced the rule that we can not move I felt anxious because I love to go wherever I want to go, feel free.

Lyon, we meet again

We’ve been in lockdown now for more than three weeks. So, what did we do? Discovering Lyon. On Friday evening we went running for 5 km in Parc de Parilly. It’s a big parc (around 178 hectares) that offers numerous sport facilities like a running track, hippodrome, basketball courts, etc.

Saturday morning, we visited Lyon. In Lyon there are a lot of stairs and we found some colorful stairs (Escaliers Colorés). An amazing way to discover Lyon is by using Vélo’V. The bikes are all over the city and there even are electrical bikes.

Another thing you find a lot in Lyon are courtyards and traboules. You will find them mainly in the old part, Vieux-Lyon. Traboules are shortcuts between streets. It’s like an internal passage that connects different roads. The word comes from the Latin word ‘Trans ambulare’ which means ‘pass through’.

These pass throughs were used in the Middle Age to quickly reach the boat to the Saône, river that flows through Lyon. During World War II these were the secret passages from and to Lyon. We visited Cour des Voracs that lies in the middle of a traboule with three separate entries. It’s hard to find but worth a visit.

On Saturday afternoon we lunched with a colleague of mine and her friends. We had an awesome day.

Sunday, we worked for school because we have a paper to finish, and we also went for a run in Parc de Parilly.

Sunshine, Lyon time

Another weekend, another experience in Lyon. Saturday morning, we went to the old part of Lyon again to search for some more traboules. We walked around and enjoyed because we love this part of Lyon. We passed by the Cathédrale Saint-Jean, the oldest house in Lyon located in the impasse Turquet de Lyon. The oldest house is from the 14^th century.

An awesome thing about Lyon is that they have free public toilets everywhere, even in parcs. Handy in times like these when bars are closed. You can find the public toilets on Google Maps and sometimes they are inside a building. The toilets are getting ‘cleaned’ (washed) automatically after every visit.

On Saturday afternoon we met up for lunch with some friends and we went to Parc de la Tête d’Or to chill. It was a beautiful sunny day.

Sunday, we went for a walk in Saint-Romain-au-Mont-d’Or and did a 6 km run in Parc de Parilly.

Grand Lyon

On Saturday we worked for school because we want to finish our paper before our internship ends.

On Sunday we went hiking in Saint-Cyr-au-Mont-d’Or. We did a three-hour hike and again we went to Parc de Parilly for a run.

Okay that was it for our time during the confinement. Next weekend we plan on going to Ardèche with some people. Stay tuned for our next adventures in France.