France - Part 1

We started off our time in Lyon with a meal at a typical bouchon.

The picture above is of one of the streets just lined with restaurants and outdoor seating. One thing I love about the food in Lyon is most of the restaurants offer a few set menus for you to choose from. Any meal always include bread and water. The set menus include an appetizer, entree, and cheese or dessert (sometimes both!). The prices are usually between 10 and 20 euros, depending on the place you choose. While studying there, I fell in love with warm goat cheese salads, gratin dauphinois, and quenelles. Needless to say, I had my fair share of those dishes while we were there...



See that pretty blue bottle in the photo above? It's a very simple concept. Every single restaurant keeps bottles full of water in their fridge. When people sit down at a table, the waiter brings out bread and the chilled bottle of water. Why oh why can't Portugal do the same? France gets points in our book for this. And don't the tables and bottles just look so cute and, well, French?

More streetside dining


We found my old kebab place! Might even be the same guy working there....


What else but more cheese?


Pretty bakery


Fleur-de-lys cakes!


Cute little cafe in my friend Ellen's old neighborhood


One thing I love about France is people really do carry baguettes around!


Checking out the Roman amphitheater ruins.



Lyon has a bunch of passageways which lead under and betwen buildings and courtyards. They were built to allow the silk factory workers to transport textiles between buildings while staying sheltered from the rain


Long, steep staircase


Crepe stand, which almost looks fake because it's so cute!


We went to a bar that I used to hang out at when I was living there, called the Smoking Dog. It's a British pub, which was always half crowded with expats and the other half local French. They used to show The Simpsons and Friends on Sunday nights, and we usually made it to their pub quiz they had once a week. It was great to check it out and see that it hadn't changed one bit.

See the sign above me?



Enjoying a Guinness


A shot of me, Ellen, and our friend Lauren hanging out at the Dog in 2001. You might say we frequented the place. :)


I'll be back with some pictures of the trip we took to Provence -it was beautiful.

Lyon!

We had a really great time in France. I had not been back to Lyon in close to 10 years, so I was very much looking forward to seeing the city again. In some ways it felt like forever since I had been there.

The city itself is very pretty and built at the confluence of 2 major rivers. There are a bunch of bridges which cross over the rivers, including pedestrian-only bridges which I like. Lyon is the second or third largest city after Paris (depending on how you count the population). It feels like a large city, but it has a much more close-knit feel to it than Paris. You can easily walk around most of the city within a day. They have a great bike rental system where you can rent and return a bike through a machine 24 hours a day. We really wanted to use them but they required a credit card which has a chip in it, and our credit card from the States does not.

I will put up some more pictures soon and let you know what we did during our time in France. For now, enjoy some photos of the city.

Here is a picture of the gorgeous church on the hill. Lyon has its own little Eiffel Tower. The first picture on this post is the view from the square at the church.






Lyon is known for its buildings' painted walls. There are more than 200 in the city. Here are a couple examples we took pictures of.



Night view

It's the end of the world as we know it

At the southwestern point of Europe is an area that was known by the Romans as Promontorium Sacrum - the end of the world. It kept its name for centuries until the Portuguese decided to venture out into the ocean where legend said that the water boiled, causing the white foam sailors could see in the distance. It was from the town of Sagres that Prince Henry the Navigator sent forth expeditions to discover and map the world. During our recent Algarve trip, we were in the area, so we went to check it out.

The site features a fifteenth century fortress that many claim housed a navigation school.

Aerial view of the peninsula stolen from the internet.


Whether or not there was actually a school may be open for debate, but they did have a giant compass.


Sagres is definitely not a calm harbor though. The fort sat at the top of windblown cliffs hundreds of feet tall. We were able to walk right to the edge.

Not heeding the warning.

When you're so close to the end of the world, I guess you have to go see it.

Summer's not gone yet!

We decided one more trip to the Algarve before the summer was over was in order. Our friend Rebecca had two friends visiting her in Lisbon, so the five of us went down to the southern coast of Portugal for a beach weekend over Labor Day. We rented a three bedroom apartment at a great price, which also had a pool and hot tub. It was only about a 10 minute walk to get to the beaches, but we felt like we were in the country with the fields and horses next to the apartment!


The first day we went to a small beach town near where we were staying. You can see just how small the town is here



We enjoyed a nice lunch on the beach. Can't beat the view. Our go-to Portuguese beer, Superbock, made an appearance as well





The next morning we went to get breakfast in our town, and here is what I came across on our way. It is very typical to see a few old men sitting outside shops or cafes, but I don't think I'd ever seen that many sitting in a row! I asked their permission and snapped this pic

I like this shot of the boats pulled out of the harbor


While we were getting our coffee and pastries (at 10:45 in the morning) I noticed the three British guys behind us were drinking huge beers. I took this picture just to get a shot of their morning beverages. :)


That day we checked out another beach that we'd heard was in a beautiful setting. The dramatic cliffs and rocks were indeed a great spot to swim and play bocce ball




Oh, and we made a friend at the beach


We checked out an abandoned fortress at the top of some of the cliffs. It was a little spooky but the views were awesome



Can you see the two guys perched on the VERY edge of the cliff fishing? They were so high up - and standing right on the edge - it was unbelievable



Had to get some grilled fish at some point.....


Our last day there we decided to try out the beach right in the tiny town where we were staying. The water was perfect; clear and calm enough for us to just float and talk.





We finally understand why the Algarve is such a popular destination. I know we'll be back next summer for sure.