Lyon un plus fois!

Woh! At the top of the Basilique
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This Sunday my parents and I went to Lyon to see the Basilique and Roman Theatre.  Of course the driving was scary again, but less scary than before and we actually made pretty good time. We first went to Vieux-Lyon (Old Lyon) and walked around the little shops there, took pictures of the cathedrale, and just enjoyed being in the beautiful city!  We got to go into the Cathedrale since it was Sunday and took nice pictures inside and lit a candle for Grampa who we all miss so much.  Ice cream was on the agenda next, which was delicious of couse like all the food in France.  It is so interesting how old everything is in France.  My dad and I saw a building that was dated back to 1619...Holy cow!!!  We took pictures near the Guignol, which is a kind of puppet that is famous in this region of France.  It is kind of like the puppets you see in the olden days.  We looked at beautiful echarpes (scarves) made of silk that are handmade (although they were about 130 euros).

Mom and the Guignol
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Then we went up to Basilique.  We decided to walk because it didn't look that far...we were wrong.  We walked all the way to the top (when you look at the pictures, I think you will understand our pain) but in the end it was worth it.  The Baslique was holding a church service when we got there (since it was Sunday) so we had to wait to take pictures, but the inside is so gorgeous. Gold guilded ceilings, stain glass windows, huge wooden doors, etc etc etc.  The view from the top was worth it as well, you could see all of Lyon.

When in France, do as the French do!

The cathedrale
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We walked a bit further to the Roman theatre and ruins, which were pretty interesting as well.  They even had some columns still there, although they were broken in half.  Dad decided to tell me about the vomitoriums, which literally when they had a festival people would go for days and eat, drink, eat, drink, repeat.  Well they would eat and drink so much there was a place to vomit so that you could repeat the eating and drinking process.  Thanks for telling me dad. haha.  We decided to take the funiculaire back (a kind of bus on a pulley system that smart people take instead of walking up a hundred stairs and steep hills) and that made the way back down much nicer.  Than we headed back to the car to Grenoble.

More cathedrale
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After we got back to Grenoble we went out for tapas!  Not French I know, but we are trying a bit of everything.  I had been there before, but we chose a bunch of different little dishes and shared it all.  Mom and I had sangria and dad had a beer of course.  We ate and ate, and then had desert and coffee.  When in France, do as the French do!  It turned out to be about a 2 hour dinner, but that is very typical French so it was okay.  Then I made mom get a shot of Chartreuse, a liqour that used to be made by the monks because water in the mountains was unsanitary.  It is a REALLY strong liqour, but is smooth too.  Usually people take a shot after dinner as a digestif (digestive).  Dad ended up finishing it, but I got a nice picture of her taking the shot!