Friday, 30 June, 2017 – Weather: Cool and a bit wet
We start out with breakfast up on the 8th floor. We are seated next to a window and it is bright and sunny, hard on the eyes, but it is expected to deteriorate later. This is Lyon in the midst of Summer?
There was smoked salmon which made someone happy.
We were informed that we would be moving to a better room. So I hung out in the existing room until it was time to move. Julie goes out on the morning walk with the group. When she returns, Julie goes out to do some study for her Oxford course.
Finally, the notification of time to move comes in at 10:45. A staff member helps me to move. The new room is the same layout as the one we just left but is quite a bit wider which makes things easier for the big suitcases.
I decide I had better not go out until Julie comes back. So settle into the room which does have a view of the River. Rob and Chris had advised us earlier that they had had the Truffle Burger from Room Service and it was quite good, so I decided to do the same.
The Truffles were in the Parmesan sauce with the burger. I thought a bit understated but maybe that is the way it should be. (Did not stop me from burping up Truffle for most of the day). I enjoyed the burger and saved the salad and baguettes for Julie for a snack.
Eventually, Julie shows up. Turns out she was waiting in the foyer for a lengthy period of time waiting to get to our new room. Apparently the staff she was dealing with had no idea that I had already moved and to where. She did enjoy the salad and baguettes. Julie receives an SMS from Capo to indicate that Rob’s Chris has gone to the Hospital as she couldn’t breathe.
There is to be a formal tour of the back lanes and alley ways in old Lyon. We go down for the start of the tour. Rob is there and explains that Chris has got pneumonia, is on anti-biotics but had to walk back from the hospital. Julie heads out with the group but I am not up for all that walking so stay back.
Julie snaps a few photos on the tour.
One of the areas that the tour visited is that where we had stayed in our previous stay in Lyon two years ago. After she returns, shortly it is time to go out for dinner. It is a famous Bouchon across town. Julie walks there, of course, whereas the rest of us take the train. Mind you it is a fair walk to the train station and a bit at the other end. As we arrive at our destination, our large group is getting off the train and suddenly the driver starts the door closing. Poor Ben almost gets chopped in half by the door and some people waiting to get on the train missed it.
We take up most of the space in the restaurant although another group arrives later sitting at the back table, they were quite loud at times. The menu is showed to us. The object is for each person to order a main course and before that they would select some things from the entrée menu for us to “put in our mouth”.
Let me say a bit about the wine. There were house whites and reds in unlabelled bottles. I thought the red was OK but most did not like either. The bottle that Susan is holding was our “highlight wine”, OK but not special. But what was worse is that the wine ran our before the main courses are served and not replaced, even though there were two other bottles on the bar that were not served. All in all not the best wine experience on the trip. Then the mains start arriving.
The sausage was made from pigs nose and ears and possibly the eyes. They also had a course “calves head” but it was just a casserole. As can be seen, the bouchon in general specialises in “head to tail” eating. Like the wine, not the food highlight of the trip, albeit different.
We decided we had had enough so walked the long, long walk back home. A couple of wines and bed time.