Lyon
Probably one of the nicest cities in France. At least some of my friends told me so. And I had 2 days off, so I decided to go there. But I had some problems and used up my first off day in Furtwangen. So that left me just one day to go to Lyon and then go all the way back to Amsterdam. At that time I didn’t realised that but now I’m getting there. It’s kinda stupid. Why because the train takes about 8 hours from Furtwangen to Lyon and after spending the night there, I had to leave for Amsterdam the next morning, which is going to take again more than 8 hours. And the time between was just 3, 4 hours for me to visit and see Lyon. Yeah, that’s crazy. For an extra 16 hours of train trip just to spend 3, 4 hours… Yeah, I probably am not going to do it again!
Anyway, I’ve arrided in Lyon Part Dieu, the main train station in Lyon. I’ve sent my host an SMS saying what time I’ll be arriving. After I’ve arrived I also sent her where I was going to wait and after 15 minutes there she was. She came with her bicycle. There were lots of people doing that in Lyon, which is one of the things I like most about the Western European cities. The mentality to make sports not paying attention to how old they are.
I left my bags, she showed me my couch and I was ready to go out and discover Lyon. My Mexican friend, Alfredo Padilla Ley, pinche frijolero, had told me 2, 3 places to visit and I had a prioritised list of these places. I went to the Republic Street, which is like the main street for pedestrians, which is also kind of like the Istiklal Street in Istanbul or maybe Bagdat Street, I should say. I was lucky to find one of the sports shops to buy a championship T-Shirt of Olympique Lyon. They had to won the league 6 years in a row. That’s incredible!
Later I had visited one of the places I had in my list. I took pictures, I walked around. Then I moved to another spot in my list, which would actually take me to the final spot, then I was going to be done with the list. But there they had some kind of open theater, so I couldn’t go that way. But I was able to take lots of nice view pictures of Lyon.
I should also mention the river flowing through the city. One of my friends had a theory, he says: “Every f.cking European city has a river, flowing through it.” It is kind of true, actually. But I would limit those cities with an adjective “nice/beautiful”. So every nice European city has a river or a lake or a seaside. Examples: Istanbul, it is somewhere special, it has Bosphorus, Amsterdam, Paris, Venice, Vienna, Lyon and so on… Just think for a moment, you’ll see that I’m right…
Afterwards, I met my host again, she was going to go to a bar with her friends and I just joined them and there I tried the new French beer. It is called Desperado. Well, that is a Spanish name and that beer has some tequila in it, but they insisted on and on that it is 100% French beer and I won’t be able to find this beer anywhere outside France. I think they were right.
After a couple of hours in the bar, my host and I left and went to the flat. Because I was again supposed to get up early, the next morning and so was she. And my day for Lyon ended like that. The next morning: New Target: Amsterdam!!!
Buyruk Alparslan - September 07 - Balikesir / Turkey
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