Lyon and onto Dijon

So from now on days with blue skies and the sunshine will be referred to as "clear days", not "sunny", because "sunny" gives you the impression that there is some warmth involved, and lately our "sunny" days have been bloody freezing!  Our second day in Lyon dawned CLEAR and bright, and Greg felt he really should do some more work on the damn report (which is what the kids and I call it) in addition to the work he does most mornings while we are still sleeping.  Sometimes we wish he was not so thorough, but he is, so we sighed, left him to it and set off on our own to see more of Lyon. I thought it would be a good idea to walk all the way into the old city, about 5kms, because it would warm us up.  Luckily although it was clear it wasn't windy, but it was about 3 degrees and we had to walk very briskly indeed to keep warm.  We stopped in a few stops along the way, one being a patisserie (a reward for all the walking I was making them do when we could have got there in 5 metro stops!).  Liam has become a huge fan of chocolate eclairs.  And vanilla eclairs.  Just eclairs in general.  He'd eat them all day if we let him, and in fact declares that when he returns to Europe as an adult he'd do just that, but as he'll be paying for them himself I'm not so sure :-)  We had decided to take the funicular up the hill to see the church and roman ruins at the top - to save Bella's knees and also because a funicular sounds so much fun.  Well, it was certainly quicker than walking, but we were mainly in a tunnel so I wouldn't recommend it for sightseeing!  From the top we had a great view of the city, but despite the clear blue sky it was a bit smoggy, so my photos didn't turn out as I'd hoped.  I'm sure there are lenses you can use to help improve photos in those situations but I've done no study at all on this so I just use the landscape setting and hope for the best!!  We went into the church, called the Basilique Notre Dame de Fourviere, and we were absolutely blown away by how beautiful it was inside.  Amazingly detailed mosaic pictures covered the walls and ceilings, and every single bit of the interior was decorated - it was breath taking.  You could imagine peasants cowering and over-awed by the sight - we were!  From there we walked to the ruins of the Roman amphitheatre.  Here is my new fact for you, Lyon was the capital of Roman Gaul, and there are ruins all over the city, most of them incorporated into new(ish) buildings!  We walked back down the hill singing Sound of Music Songs.  Bella decried a ban on Sound of Music songs for a while as she feels we've been over doing them.  We agreed, and set off again, only to hear Bella humming "I am 16 going on 17"!!  They really are very catchy tunes!
After spending more time wandering around the old city looking for something warm and tasty and cheap to eat.  I've been craving a good soup.  Now, you don't think that would be hard to find in Europe in winter, would you?  Honestly I've looked everywhere and there is not a take away soup to be found!  But in the old city we found a pasta and soup take away place that had surprisingly nice pasta AND soup.  Yay.  Bella and I were feeling quite crook so the soup was just what I needed.  I'd left my phone at the hotel so we didn't know what time it was and we had to meet Greg at 4pm at Les Halles, the big indoor markets.  We guessed it was maybe about 2.30, and we felt quite exhausted, so we took the metro back to the hotel to meet him there instead.  He wasn't there, because it was... 3.55!!  So instead of resting for an hour we sped out the door to jump back on the metro (luckily it was so conveniently on our doorstep) and were only 10 minutes late!  Greg bought duck ravioli to whip up for our dinner in the tiny kitchenette.  He does a great job in very limited conditions!  He'd even picked up icecreams as we had a small freezer in the little fridge, but it turned out to just be for show, as the icecreams were very, very soft when we ate them!  At least they didn't freeze our teeth!
On our last day in Lyon we had decided to visit the Lyon Musee Beaux Arts.  It's a Lovely museum set in an old convent, with lots of great art works. Bella was craving soup that day so we searched around and successfully found one of the pizza/soup chains (we'd seen someone wandering past with their tell tale container, so we knew they were in the area somewhere!).  Greg was quite impressed with his pasta - they reheat the pasta as you order and then add your choice of sauce -  and as he is quite fussy about food that was high praise!  We took him into the old city to see the sights we'd discovered the day before (but not up the hill!  He was content to view my photos!) and we had an early dinner at a traditional Lyonnese Bouchon restaurant we'd found the day before.  If you eat before 7.30pm you get 30% off your bill!  The food was good and we were able to skip any offal or pork intestine dishes!
Today we drove from Lyon to Dijon.  The hotel we've found here is just three minutes walk from the old city, which has heaps of medieval and renaissance buildings - it's very pretty.  And the city museum is free!  Amazing!  Liam was thrilled to see that there was an ice skating rink - and it was only 1 euro (it cost 8 euro each in Salzburg).  He couldn't convince Greg or Bella to join him though.  I don't know why neither of them were keen on spending time on the ice and getting bruised bottoms and knees!!  He didn't bother asking me.  It's too hard and too far to fall!  It was 3 degrees this afternoon and will go below zero again tonight.  Time to head off to dinner - a recommendation from our hotel so I'll report in and let you know!