The last time i had been to Lyon, it was just a connection on my way to Grenoble, when I was working for BlackBerry as an intern.  They sent me to a vendor for three weeks in 2010, which was fun and my first time in Europe.  9 years later I am finally able to get out and explore Lyon.

I wasn’t sure what my France plan was as I had plans to meet a friend in Madrid in a few weeks and had to make my way south.  I thought about going to Paris again as I had been ther ein 2010 but did not enjoy it very much.  I thought I would give it a second chance.  However, when I looked at accommodations there were no hostels and things were very expensive, so i opted to skip Paris and headed along the Eastern part of the country instead.  I looked at popping over to Geneva and had a similar experience, so instead just went to Lyon.  I arrived on the bus mid day and walked through the streets on my way to the hostel.  I enjoyed the walk as the buildings were beautiful and there were tons of people everywhere.  It was a totally different vibe than the past few countries I had visited.

I spent the first day more or less wandering the streets and ended up having a really chill day.

Lyon itself is beautiful, there are two rivers running through the middle and a hill on one end.  The bridges on the water were pretty nice at night.

In the morning I woke up and went for a morning adventure run through the city.

it was very scenic!

After my run, I decided to head up the hill to check out the view over the city.

It was a hot day and the climb up was a little bit hard after my run, but I eventually made it up.

At the top of the hill there was a beautiful church and and an old amphitheater ruins.

I spent the next bit of the day exploring the church and the ruins.

I ended up heading down the hill after a bit of chilling and exploring and went on the lookout for some food.  I was not really feeling any of the restaurants and ended up just going to a bakery and getting a baguette.

After the baguette, I continued to wander and eventually stumbled onto a brewery by accident.

It was called Tom and Co and was a pretty small operation.  They were in a small space and only had a few small fermenters.

I tried each one of their offerings and they were ok at best.  Not the best I’ve had, but better than the mainstream stuff.

I kept walking and decided to check out one of the other tourist attractions in the city, which was a mural on the side of a building on the water.

The walk along the water was pretty nice too.

I headed back to the hostel for a rest and tried to see if anyone wanted to join me for a typical lyonaise dinner.  There was a well reviewed one nearby the hostel so one of the guys i convinced to come headed out.  It turns out that these restaurants only seat one table per night, so when we walked in and asked if there was a table they said they only had one left and yet the place was completely empty.  We arrived just before 8 and there was almost nobody there.

By 9pm the place started to fill in.  The checkerboard tablecloth is apparently classic decor.  Service was extremely slow and it was clear that when you go out for dinner in France, it is an entire evening affair.  You arrive after 9pm and hang out until around midnight or later.  I remember this being a thing the last time i was in France (although it was worse because I was alone for most meals then).  Anyways, once we figured out what we had gotten ourselves into, we decided to just go with it and make it an evening affair.  Although we were still one of the first onesto leave.

I ended up getting the set menu and it was DELICIOUS!  I had been walking around all day and had just had a ton of food, so opted to head back to the hostel for the night.

I felt like I had done a pretty good job of exploring the sites of Lyon and so the next day I needed to make my way south.  I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go as I also wanted to go to Andorra on my way to Spain.  I decided on making my way to Toulouse, because I found a cheapish AirBnB room and was excited not to be in a hostel for once.  The next morning I jumped on a bus and was on my way to Toulouse.

I knew nothing about what there was to do there but I am sure I would figure it out.