September 16 – Lyon

More walking around Lyon this morning.  We took the tourist map that listed murals, gates, traboules, churches and other tourist spots of interest and tried to see what we could find.  And there were lots of lovely sights to see.

We found a number of very good murals (and some graffiti).

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More Murals
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The doors to most of the traboules were closed so we couldn’t explore most of them.  Many of them lead to an interior courtyard with surrounding apartment buildings so many are closed for privacy.

We did stumble across the La Martiniere School.  Tara (our travel agent) attended the to La Martiniere in Lucknow, India and we have been there.  So this was a treat.  We took photos and sent them to her.

We found the city hall – beautiful, old architecture

and the opera house.  This building was very unusual.  The lower portion looked to be old (maybe mid-19^th century) and it was topped with a barrel vaulted, glass-covered, modern structure.  

The Place des Terreaux was a lovely big square with interesting buildings surrounding it.  The city hall backs onto it.

We ran into another couple from the boat so we all four ducked into a coffee shop for drinks.  Paul and I had a light lunch there.

Then it was on to the old city again.  More views of the de Fouriere basilica on the hill.

And the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist was open so we went inside to see it...

and to find the astrological clock…huge.

While we were in the church there was a youth choir practicing for some event that was to take place later in the day.  We stayed for a while to listen.  The sound was lovely in the large space of the cathedral.

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Video of choir practice
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