Biscuits to Baguettes: Our First Visitors

We finally got to share our French life with someone. And not just anyone. Our daughter and son-in-law! We had been anxiously awaiting their arrival and the time finally came. Bruce & I headed over to Lyon to pick them up. We parked, went in the airport, and stood right in front of the customs door where they would very soon come through. And then a problem arose. There was a suitcase sitting right next to us and no one else nearby. An airport employee came over to ask if it was ours. "No", we replied. He then began asking everyone in the area. No one claimed the suitcase. Bruce & I caught on to what the guy might be thinking and decided to move away from the suitcase. To make a long story short, we were soon forced to move further back, then outside, then across the parking lot ... all while the dogs and the bomb squad came to check things out! The disturbing part was that Marie & Brandon were still on the other side of that door and we didn't see anyone moving them!

They finally released all the passengers through a side door without going through customs at all and we were able to start our vacation together. We never saw anything about this in the news so I'm sure there was no real bomb. It did make for an exciting start.

We drove into Lyon where we had a hotel located on the peninsula just across the river Saône from Vieux Lyon (Old Lyon). From our windows, we could watch the outdoor show at the Celestin Theater put on by acrobats. Very scary to watch what they did with no protective mats, wires, etc. Those people on the balconies were jumping from one level to another in some of the "moves".

Acrobats

Celestin Theater with Old Lyon behind it.

We needed to be sure Marie & Brandon stayed awake to adjust to the time difference so we walked a lot, going to the top of Old Lyon to the Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourviêre. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed the views.

View of La Saône, the river we crossed to get to Vieux Lyon.

Looking up at Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourviêre

Cathédral St-Jean in Vieux Lyon

Basilique Notre-Dame

The Tour métallique de Fourvière (below) is a television tower in Lyon designed like the top portion of the Eiffel Tower. Since Marie & Brandon did not go to Paris, I took their picture here to look like they did!

Tour métallique de Fourvière

View of Lyon from the top of Fourviére Hill

Crossing a cool bridge across the Saône.

View of Vieux Lyon during the day

View of Vieux Lyon at night

Bridge on the Saône

My favorite daughter & son-in-law waiting for their first French meal .

The next morning we decided to tour around the rest of Lyon. We were wanting to ride bikes around town, but we couldn't get the bike machine to release bikes for us. So we walked again. The day was very overcast and eventually began to rain. It put a damper on our time in the beautiful park - Tête d'Or. We finally decided to just drive home to Clermont-Ferrand. Here are a few more pictures from our time in Lyon.