Day 29 ~ In Which Stef and Daniel Encounter Many Surprises in a Park

Today started with a proper French petit dejeuner – a chocolate almond croissant and a babka, which Stef hadn’t had before, but turns out to be delicious.

Honestly, we didn’t really know what to do with the day. We had a whole city to explore, and only one short day to do it. We decided to head north, to the Parc de la Tête d’Or. It was massive on the map, and it had been a very long time since we’d been to a good city park. So north we went.

Look at these fancy gates into the park! This was the Porte des Enfants du Rhône. Neat!

There was a big lake with an island mausoleum in the middle. There was a tunnel out to the island if we went to the left, but we were drawn to the right. Another time.

It was a beautiful day for a stroll in the park, after yesterday’s thunder and rain.

Then we encountered the wildest scene – a swan had lumbered up onto the lakeshore and was very assertively demanding that some picnickers surrender their sandwiches. Such elegant creatures…

On we went, enjoying the day. We rounded a bend to see…

Giraffes! There were giraffes in this park! A bunch of them, and a watusi cow, and zebras.

We kept wandering farther in, waiting for someone to kick us out. It turns out that this was an entire zoo, completely free to the public, and it was a fine one. We saw a jaguar on full display…

…A little bat-eared fox…

…a sand cat…

…plus monkeys, flamingoes, and many small animals. We even saw a crane that had escaped – only to get rounded up by the zookeepers. They did their best to make it an okay experience for the bird, but he sure did look scared. Still, a very surprising happening.

By this time, we were overdue for lunch, so we turned toward the south edge of the park. On our way, we saw the botanical gardens. Surely we’d need to pay to enter a building this grand:

But we poked our heads in…and no one was there to collect a fee. We just wandered in, and wandered out. Another great surprise!

My mom will recognize this anthurium she bought me when my kitty died, and that she has been watering twice a week for the past month:

We found a very nice lunch spot with a plant-lined patio, and were served burgers by a half-Minnesotan half-French fellow who was very friendly.

We walked on, and stopped for patisserie and espresso that we took out to a park. Stef had her first-ever mille feiulle – she pronounced it delicious.

We went to Les Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse, a massive food hall in an unexpectedly modern building. This was a fun place with butchers, cheese vendors, produce stands, pubs, restaurants – if you’re into it and it’s food-themed, it was there. Tragically, we did not get any photos of this, focused as we were on deciding what cheese to buy (this took at least 15 minutes).

We were ready to go…but were greeted by this at the back entrance:

When Lyon has a storm, they really have a storm. We waited it out for a few minutes, and the storm passed pretty quickly. We headed back to our hotel.

After some decompressing and grocery shopping, we headed to the 8th floor of our hotel to enjoy their swanky bar. We had some very delicious mocktails, did some people-watching, and admired the view.

It was a very fitting farewell to Lyon, a city we’ve enjoyed so much, and wish we had more time in. Overall, Lyon has a very lived-in feel that we appreciated. We’ve spent a lot of our time this trip in cities that feel like museum pieces, and Lyon was dynamic, cosmopolitan, and focused on living la vie belle. Our one regret is that we did not make it back to Vieux Lyon on this trip, which deserved much more of our time, and better weather.

And now…to Spain!