La grande promenade - part 1

Aaron is DONE working until we get back to Minnesota -- hurrah! So we are now free to spend the remaining days of our trip however we see fit. To kick off our last week in France in proper, exhausting fashion, we spent Thursday (another national holiday, this time for Ascension) taking about a 10-12 mile walk around several areas of Lyon.

To orient you a bit before I begin describing our trek, here's a brief overview of the geography of Lyon: The central part of Lyon (containing the downtown area to the south and the Croix-Rousse hill to the north) is called the Presqu'île, which means peninsula (presque="almost" and île="island"). Running down the west side of the Presqu'île is the Saône, and down the east side, the Rhône. The southern tip of the Presqu'île, where the two rivers meet, is known as la confluence. The area where Aaron and I live, Vieux Lyon (Old Lyon), is across the Saône to the west of Presqu'île.

We started our urban hike by walking south on the Presqu'île side of the Saône. We were hoping to follow the riverside walking path all the way to la confluence, but having never been to the southern section of Presqu'île before, we didn't really know what to expect.

Riverwalk views





So far, so good....



After perhaps 25 minutes of walking, however, we hit a dead end -- but at least it was a very interesting dead end!



It seems there is an extensive urban renewal project underway on a large swath of land at the southern end of the Presqu'île. Several signs we saw indicated that parts of the project were supposed to be completed in 2009, or even at the end of 2008, but from the looks of it, they are a bit behind schedule. (I suppose the economic crisis has likely slowed down the project somewhat.) The rest of our walk through the Presqu'île took us around the perimeter of the construction site and past the very tip of the peninsula, the future home of the impressive new building for the Musée des Confluences, formerly the Natural History Museum. All of this confirmed the hunch I had when we visited the Cité Internationale a few weeks ago: If we return to Lyon in another 10 to 20 years, it will be a significantly different city.





Le centre-ville s'agrandit... (Downtown is growing)



"Like an island in the city"



From the southern end of the Presqu'île, we crossed a bridge over the Rhône in a stiff wind and, after walking slightly farther south, entered the Parc de Gerland, a nearly 200-acre park that houses -- among other things -- the Stade de Gerland, the ~42,000-seat stadium where the reigning French football (i.e., soccer) champions the Olympique Lyonnais play.

Crossing the Rhône



Fun with human-sized gerbil balls at the Parc de Gerland



The local wildlife was not too fearsome :)



By this time, we were quite ready for a break in the shade and some nourishment, so we spent the next hour or two taking public transportation up to the base of the Croix-Rousse slope (ahhh -- long, cool metro ride!) and getting some lunch at one of the numerous friendly neighborhood kebab shops. After a relaxing hour of watching Lebanese pop music videos while we polished off our sandwiches and French fries with mayo, we were ready to go for round two of walking in the sun -- this time with hills! I'll cover that part in my next post.