Lyon

We left Prague early this morning to catch an Easy Jet flight to Lyon. Levi had met our cab driver coming back from the airport after dropping off the car and had arranged for an early morning pick up. Martin was there at 6:00 as promised and took us the more scenic, residential route to the airport. At one point he passed a stopped truck by driving up onto the tram tracks. I wasn't too worried until I saw an oncoming tram (fortunately there was enough room for tram and taxi). Anyhow he was a very nice fellow and it was fun to practice my Czech for a few more minutes before having to switch to my horrible French.

The flight to Lyon was super easy and very short (about 1hr 15min). We did pretty well getting onto the train to downtown Lyon - even getting help from an English speaking fellow from Saudi Arabia who had studied in Corvallis, OR (!). We had some struggles getting the Metro ticket machine to read our credit cards but finally realized (duh) that we could use Euros. Walking to our hotel was impressive for the sheer number of restaurants we passed that looked really great (and had the scents to match).

Our hotel is called the Hotel des Célestins which is by Place Belle Cour on the Centre Ville peninsula that is bordered by the Soane and Rhone rivers. It is an old style French hotel with the funky tiny elevator, windy staircase and cool wood doors. The neighborhood is filled with restaurants and clothing stores. I'm tempted to box up all my clothes and mail them all home just so I can buy a new all-French wardrobe. However, if all my meals are like this afternoon's lunch I won't be able to fit into anything I've brought.

For lunch we ate around the corner from the hotel at a place called Le Comptoir des Marronniers. Yummy yummy. The crazy thing is that all the menus look appetizing so it's pretty much a matter of saying, "That one." Who knows what dinner will bring. We'll have to see after our nap.