Hello,
I received a lot of help on TT, particularly from basie among others, for our planned bank holiday weekend in late May as above: basie suggested I do a follow up report so here goes: we arrived after midnight Thursday night at our hotel, Mercure Lyon Centre Beaux Arts, in an Art Deco building off Bellecour Square, the tariff was about 140 euro per night including a sumptuous breakfast; the room, although relatively small and compact had a nice feeling of space and we had two comfortable single beds, good pillows, a great shower, helpful reception knowledgeable about Lyon, amazing airconditioning, something Italy doesn't seem to get and always uses the excuse of EU regulations about keeping the temp at 24 celsius, sweltering, especially in airless rooms!
We had a booking the next day at 12.30 at Au Petit Bouchon Chez Georges, Rue du Gare. For starters Monique, my daughter, had the Salade Lyonnaise and I had the Oeufs Cocotte, and for mains Monique had the sausage and potato stewed in beaujolais wine and I had the quenelle with pike and crayfish flavour - very good; we had two 500ml bottles of the Macon Village blanc, interesting, we quite liked it: Macon Village blanc is recently a very 'in' wine in the UK! We realise we did not choose what the bouchons specialise in - offal, tripe etc - and I particularly had chosen two similar meals- but although the food was good for what it was, we prefer less homely food. As we had only got to bed at 3am that morning we had an afternoon sleep and later were lucky enough to get a booking at the restaurant Le Canut et les Gones in the Croix Rousse quarter that evening, a recommendation we picked up in The Guardian. Our venture up a steep hill to Croix Rousse, a delightful bohemian area where we stopped in a square to have a beer and a glass of wine respectively before arriving at our restaurant, was a highlight of our stay in Lyon and I am sorry we didn't spend more time discovering this quarter and surrounds.
The restaurant was excellent, I believe it has a Japanese chef, it is a Lyon restaurant with cheffy touches: we had the same starter, a foie gras terrine, and we both had pork fillet with the most delicious vegetables - pumpkin puree, crisp broccoli, baby asparagus spears, never seen these before, they were on a long curving stem and the actual head was a tiny half a centimeter, yummy, and some jus. Dessert was a chocolate, raspberry and pistachio concoction, again delicious and then some local cheese. We always drank wine, mainly red, from the region. After dinner, we walked back to our hotel down the steep hill, there were lots of bars open and they looked like fun, but it was late and we needed to get back to the hotel and catch up on our sleep.
We had booked early lunch on Saturday at L'Institut Paul Bocuse, his school in the Royal Hotel, Bellecour. We arrived at 12 and were seated in the dining room, a spanking vision of glass and chrome, very impressive; one can watch the student chefs at work in glassed off kitchens, a wonderful experience: for starters we chose foie gras, this turned out to be a minimalist serving on toast with a marmalade chutney and balsamic vinegar criss-crossed artistically across the plate - I like a good serving of foie gras so was a bit disappointed; for mains Monique had confit pork accompanied by a grilled boudin and tiny little clams,(lovely!) pomme puree and a roasted heart of lettuce. I had a sort of boeuf bourguignon neatly balanced on a gratin of macaroni - I was very disappointed in this, it seemed as if presentation was the most important issue for the chefs and the meat was too rich for the small offering of macaroni, I would have liked some vegetables, perhaps some sweet carrots and potato etc. For afters Monique had a delicious large caramel macaroon with mango and passion fruit and a salted caramel glace, very yummy and I had a generous plate of cheese - again I was disappointed and wondered if they had got it out of the fridge in time - I think I may have chosen badly, my fault! The cheapest wine was 29 Euro.
However, we weren't only in Lyon to eat and quaff wine! (It is the gastronomic capital of France, they say!). We spent the afternoon taking in the Musee des Beaux Arts located in a former Benedictine Convent of the 17th Century, our main interest being the paintings - highlights were a Veronese, a Rubens, a low country section, these were appreciated. I did find part of the gallery badly organised and one had to trawl through a lot of French paintings to get to the Italian, Spanish and modern paintings (Picasso, Francis Bacon etc) - this gallery has the claim of being second to The Louvre, I only spent a day in The Louvre years ago before my passion for painting developed but even so it seemed much more impressive and I must say this gallery did not measure up to favourites of mine such as The Prado and Reina Sofia in Madrid or The Uffizi in Florence. It's amazing how important it is to hang paintings well. However, we were a bit rushed and did not take in the artifacts, sculpture, medals etc. We did spend three or four hours there.
We then headed towards the River Saone where we had fun discovering the murals/ tromp l'oeil on the sides of various buildings; then on to Vieux Lyon to find the Traboules, old secret passages mainly used by the silk trade (to keep the silk dry when it rained I believe!), and more recently by The Resistance during the 2nd World War. I must say we were sorry not to be able to fit in the museum about the Lyon French Resistance,;also, being a bit of movie enthusiasts, cinematography was invented by the Lumieres here in Lyon and there is a museum on that - too little time to fit all this in in one weekend sadly.
That night, now a bit tired of the table d'hote way of eating in Lyon, on the recommendation of a fellow traveller in Fodor's, we decided to share a plate of charcuterie and cheese at La Cave d'a Cote: this was an excellent choice, they had a truly representative selection of the most delicious local charcuterie including the famed rosette de Lyon sausage, a huge platter ample for 2 people (or more!) for 18 Euro! Some very good wines too - we were recommended a bottle of Beaujolais Chardonnay and this was the best wine of our stay. It was a funky popular bar playing fun music and we spent a relaxing evening here.
We had booked a car from the airport at 4pm on Sunday for 24 hrs to be returned at 4pm on Bank Holiday Monday in time to catch our 'plane back to the UK at 6,45pm: so we had a late sleep our last morning at our lovely hotel, a late breakfast and then made for the funicular up to the Basilica de Notre-Dame, Fourviere and the views over Lyon. It was an enjoyable last outing the mosaics in the basilica a highlight. We returned to our room at our hotel (reception had said we could stay until 4pm without extra charge!), relaxed over a drink, and then headed out to catch the metro and the tram back to the airport to collect our car for our day's (24hr) jaunt in Beaujolais.
We were booked into a gite in Emeringes and dinner in Julias nearby. Beaujolais is almost an hour's drive north of the airport. On advice from a contributor on Fodor's forum, I had bought the Michelin 327 map, and he had suggested a route which I thought would fit our requirements to see the lovely rolling winelands of the Beaujolais region and, indeed, fit into our time constraints! It was a lovely afternoon and morning of motoring with fabulous views of vineyards, churches and chateaux. It was good too to see old crosses at the crossroads (!!), a very relaxing time. You can look on Fodors to find the route we took, although one can just meander in the area, it is very pretty. We certainly didn't do the Beaujolais region justice, and one really needs to spend more time here and enjoy the villages, and eat at apparently very good restaurants all around: oh well, next time!
