We woke up after another restless night and headed out to find a boulangerie for breakfast.
We found a nice little place a few blocks from the apartment where we ordered one Continental breakfast (fresh orange juice, a cute little jar of yogurt, a croissant and several slices of mixed bread) that we split and a cappuccino for me. Seating was at communal tables and the preserves were in jars that were shared by everyone -- can you imagine the American Board of Health seeing that?
We walked back to Pont Bonaparte on the Saone River to wait for the 10:10 Le Vaporetto boat for the pretty 20 minute ride down the river to the Confluence stop.
It was a short walk from the Vaporetto stop to the Musee des Confluences in a wild and crazy building which is a deconstructivist architectural design, said to resemble a floating crystal cloud of stainless steel and glass (?). The Musee des Confluences is a science center and anthropology museum that is located at the southern tip of the Presqu'ile at the confluence of the Rhone and the Saone Rivers. We wanted to go to the museum mainly to see their special exhibit "To Conquer the South Pole" depicting the grueling almost 3,000 km race to the South Pole of two explorers, Norwegian Roald Amundsen and British Captain Robert Scott between 1911 and 1912. The exhibition made us feel like we were observing the two teams, their motivations and stages of preparation. We followed their camp life, seeing that the Norwegian team preferred dogs to pull the sleds and focused his career on a single goal: reach the Pole. The English team chose ponies and carried on parallel scientific exploration, such as the collection of species still unknown. The exhibit was so realistic that we were both exhausted by the time we got to the end to see that the Norwegians reached the South Pole almost one month ahead of Captain Scott and the entire Norwegian team made it home alive, while the entire British team died!
Having survived such an arduous journey made us very hungry so we decided to try the museum restaurant on the top floor but it was packed. We then went to the fancier Brasserie des Confluences on the ground floor.
The menu was all in French and our French food dictionary did not have all the food in it. We knew that we were both ordering some sort of white fish but when my order came Mike got so upset that he hadn't ordered it since it also had mussels, clams and a poached egg with an oddly bright yellow aioli sauce that I had to give it to him! The dish he ordered was a white fish steamed in some sort of liquid with peas, carrots and corn. My lunch came with a long thin dish on top with some sort of little round things in it which upon tasting we figured had to be octopus!
We thoroughly enjoyed our lunch and several glasses of Vermentino wine but we kept seeing a beautiful strawberry desert going by -- so we had to split one It was on a puff pastry base with whipped cream and topped with a cream puff and carmel sauce . . . yum.
We had planned on doing something else this afternoon, but it was already pretty late so we decided to go through the museum's permanent exhibition which tells the story of the world and humanity in four distinct but complementary exhibitions.
Our favorite rooms were the rooms with the prehistoric animal skeletons, including this mammoth which was found not far from the museum. The museum was also a teaching museum and every room had exhibits that you could touch and explore.
I took this picture on our way out which shows that the building looks as crazy inside as it does outside!
We walked back to the Confluences Shopping Center to wait for the Vaporetto. We had a little time so we walked through the shopping center which felt very much like any mall in the United States -- The Gap, Burger King, McDonalds, Adidas, Bose, Fossil, Levi's and many more.
We caught the 4:30 Vaporetto and got off at Pont Bonaparte where we had a beautiful view across the Saone River to the Notre Dame Basilica on top of Fourviere hill. We walked over to Place Bellecour and stopped by Brasserie le Sud to see if it was possible to get a dinner reservation. Brasserie le Sud is one of four places in Lyon where you can sample legendary chef Paul Bocuse's cuisine and it is the most affordable. His brasseries feature international cuisine from different corners of the world (each named for the corner it represents -- north, south, east and west). Le Sud has a Mediterranean feel inside and out and we were happy to find out we could get a table at 7:30.
We walked back to the apartment to relax and clean up before making the 15 minute walk back towards Place Bellecour and Brasserie le Sud. We were seated immediately, getting to pass a long line of people waiting with no reservation, and enjoyed watching the drama that took place whenever they tried to seat the French people at the restaurant while we looked over the menu. The maître d' would seat a couple or group and they would look around and shake their heads "no". He would then move them to another table, where they would again look around and shake their heads "no". Finally he would seat them at a third table and after looking around, one of the group would shrug their shoulders meaning "okay". The few Americans in the restaurant were like us -- so happy to be there that we just sat where we told us and grinned!!
After looking over the delicious menu, I decided to get shredded chicken with cinnamon and cardamom in filo with a salad and Mike ordered the lamb chops with French beans and roasted potatoes along with a bottle of Cotes du Rhone 2011 red wine that was recommended by our waiter. Our meal was excellent and our waiter insisted that he had to pour our wine, but as the restaurant filled and he got busy I had to tell Mike when his back was turned so he could pour the wine for us. Even though we had had a nice desert at lunch, this was a special dinner so we ordered a crème brulee while we finished off our wine.
It was full dark when we left the restaurant so we slowly walked back to our apartment enjoying seeing the monuments and fountains all lit up, including Notre Dame Basilica up on the hill.
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