Our first two weeks in Lyon passed by quickly and the time soon arrived for us to move to different accommodation and become full-time tourists. We had originally intended to stay the full month at Les Toits de Lyon but the threat of climbing 150 stairs up to our private eyrie twice a day or more for all that time, was more than your scribe’s knees liked to contemplate. So we had found another abode at 154 rue de Moncey in the newer Part-Dieu district of the 3e arrondissement. This 19th century bourgeois building is in the area of the city originally constructed in the epoch of grand architecture, in the style of Baron Haussman who designed much of elegant Paris we know today. Sadly many of those grand buildings have long since disappeared, allowing the construction of more modern buildings such as the magnificent 200m high Tour Incity overshadowing our second abode, the adjacent over-rated, Les Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse, a more mundane Galeries Lafayette Lyon Part Dieu, and a selection of hotels such as Ibis, Mercure and Novotel, all of which, though useful to business and tourist traveller alike, detract from the innate attractiveness of the city of 100 years ago.
So we got to see a very different side of Lyon than the one we had so enthused about in the previous fortnight. The main redeeming feature of this new environment was that we found ourselves to be just a ten minute stroll from Le Parc de la Tête d’Or, 117 hectares of urban parkland, incorporating a large lake, a small but well stocked zoo for which there was no entry fee (one of the many advantages of living in a socially aware state), large greenhouses and botanical gardens, and large swathes of open grass and patches of woodland. Well frequented by locals of all ages and athletic capabilities, it was a lovely place to walk, jog or bike around and feel somewhat removed from the hustle and bustle of the city. As with large parks in other great cities, the park was surrounded by many elegant buildings housing embassies, consulates, upmarket consultants and the like, making it as pleasant a place to walk around, as to wander within.
However, we still found ourselves continually drifting back to the old town, enjoying the atmosphere of the many outdoor cafes and the famous bouchons where in older and tougher times, the matrons of the town would serve hearty portions of simple, but tasty fare to their low-paid, artisan clientele. Those same tasty dishes still comprise the major portion of the goodies listed on today’s menu boards, but they aren’t all to everyone’s taste incorporating as they do all the tasty offal, tripe, fishy bits and fatty bits that modern western cuisine has come to avoid. Definitely food more suited to the ‘gourmand’ than the ‘gourmet’, but nonetheless appreciated by many as attested to by the full tables that we passed on our many peregrinations through the old streets.
Beguiled by the tourist hype surrounding these famed Lyonnaise eating establishments, the main mass of which are to be found in Vieux Lyon along and around the old cobbled street rue Saint-Jean, we tried them a couple of times with varying degrees of satisfaction. Our first experience, to celebrate the end of the first week of our return to student life, was at Bouchon des Filles, a cosy little bistro, well off the main tourist trail, on rue du Sergent Blandan. We both love soufflé and, as well as the restaurant’s high rating on Trip Advisor, the mention of ‘Soufflé au Grand Marnier’ on the web-site menu grabbed our instant attention. Typically we found it was off the menu the Sunday evening of our visit, and we contented ourselves with entrées of terrine de joues de porc and main courses of roignons de veau avec du riz – not so well appreciated – and une quenelle de brochet avec sauce de crevettes, very typical Lyonnaise and quite delicious. Your cheese-loving raconteur also enjoyed his introduction to Brillat-Savarin, a soft, white cow’s milk cheese, somewhat like Camembert, and also from Normandy. A reasonable introduction to the much-lauded eating scene of Lyons but not really enough to make us want to pursue it too often at the expense of our intended ‘cooking-at-home-like-the-locals’ regime. However, as we had Celine’s friend Danusia staying with us towards the end of our stay, we decided to give it one more try. One day, after a visit to the fascinating Musée des Marionettes in Saint-Jean, the oldest part of the city on the west bank of the Saône, we happened to pass a very nice looking bouchon on rue Mercière called eponymously Le Mercière which, coincidentally, had its interior decorated with models of Guignol, the marionette that we had just learnt made Lyon’s puppetry famous. So without further ado, and omitting our usual cautious ‘let’s read the reviews first’ approach, we decided to eat there and then, found a table outside where we could enjoy the passing crowd, and, while sitting next to a chatty group of local businessmen, had another unremarkable meal including quenelles de coquilles, tablier de sapeur lyonnais (a load of tripe!), volaille de challans and some desserts. What we hadn’t bargained for was the interesting cèpe, part of the sauce served with the hard plank of tripe, that found its way into this writer’s stomach and provided an unforgettable psychedelic trip during the ensuing night, a very weird, unexpected experience indeed!
