Thursday, April 30, 2015

Lyon is known for its murals and has around 150 of them -- most of which cover an entire building.  In the early 1970s a group of local students got to discussing the closed nature of the art world and decided that murals would bring art to ordinary people.  They went to study modern wall painting in Mexico where Diego Rivera had launched a new artistic tradition and CiteCreation, their student cooperative movement was born.  Today I wanted to go up the hill to the untouristy Croix-Rousse neighborhood to see the very first of Lyon's murals, La Mur des Canuts.

Mike went out and found us some nice breakfast pastries and our very helpful front desk clerk told us what symbol to look for at tobacco shops in order to buy an all day metro ticket (which we can't buy from the machines in the metro stations because our American banks are way behind Europe and still don't issue chip and pin cards -- we are slowly getting chip and signature cards, but they won't work in train stations, metro stations or bike machines in Europe).  Mike spotted a tobacco shop with the symbol on its door on our way to the Hotel de Ville Metro stop and using his 3-CD Pimsleur French I lessons got us two all-day metro/bus tickets from the owner who spoke no English!  We caught the cute little train that took us up to the top of Croix-Rousse while were serenaded by an accordion player.

This neighborhood hummed with some 30,000 silk looms in the 1800's and there is a statue in the center of the main square honoring Monsieur Jacquard, inventor of the loom.  It was very sunny out so Mike pulled out his prescription sun glasses only to see that the screws had fallen out of both temples!  We found a small optometrist shop and the nice young woman spoke English and said she could fix them in about 5 minutes.  While we waited we walked through the small daily market again marveling at the quantity and quality of the produce, meats and cheese on display.  After picking up Mike's glasses (at no charge) we headed off trying to find our way to the des Canuts mural (Canut was the nickname for a silk worker).  We got turned around in the crazy maze of streets that make up the Croix-Rousse neighborhood but with the help of several friendly locals finally found it.

The nearly 13,000 square foot mural is a beautifully executed study of Croix-Rousse on a grand scale.  Steps march up the center of the painting, echoing the steep flights of stairs on the slopes of Croix-Rousse.  Shops and a bank can be seen at the bottom while behind them are typical Croix-Rousse buildings, both traditional and modern.

 

There was a display board on the side of the building showing the building before the mural was painted and the first version of the mural in 1987.  The present mural is the third version of the mural.  The artists went back and found the original people who were in the second version and aged them 15 years -- for instance the young woman with two children on the steps was actually a child in the second version and now has two children of her own!

One of the fun things to do with the murals is pose yourself as part of the mural, so Mike is standing with his foot on a (painted) step in the first picture and getting some money from the (painted) ATM in the second one!

We had worked up quite an appetite walking around the hilly Croix-Rousse so we started to look for someplace to eat lunch.  We found a small cute neighborhood café, Croix Roussiens on Rue de Cuire and both enjoyed a very good salade Lyonnaise (greens with a Dijon vinaigrette dressing, crispy lardons (French thick cut bacon), sourdough croutons and a poached egg on top -- a favorite.

After lunch we headed down the steep Rue des Pierres Plantees to Place des Terreaux at the bottom of the hill.  We then worked our way over to Place des Cordeliers where we figured out where to catch the C3 bus to get us to Lyon's foodie heaven, Les Halles de Lyon.  The indoor food market with over 59 food booths was as amazing as last year, but since it was late in the day some of the booths were closing down.  We bought some pastries for breakfast tomorrow morning and some chocolate for Paul to thank him for flying us again.  We stopped at the bar in Les Halles to have a beer and Kir Royale before catching the bus back to the Presqu'ile.

We had to stop at the fantastic kitchen store we found last year so that Mike could see if his wine pigs were still there -- and they were!  They are called Cocobib and are made to hide box wine -- the spout from the wine would come out of the hole in the face for serving -- and sell for over 80Euros!

Since the next day was Labor Day, a major holiday all over Europe, and most places would be closed, we did some grocery shopping and ran into the couple from North Carolina on our way back to the apartment.  We agreed to meet back at the bar in the Fuxia Restaurant at 4:00 for a drink and to compare notes.  We had a nice talk with them before going back to our apartment to clean up and decide what to do for dinner.

We walked into the pedestrian maze behind our apartment building and found the interesting looking Restaurant Le Gone where Mike had swordfish with lime and thyme and I had scallops St. Jean, both with scalloped potatoes, and a nice bottle of Vermentino wine.  Since it was our last night in Lyon we had a desert that our waitress called fondue, but was actually a dense chocolate cake in a white sauce -- yum.