The CragBaby

After my time in Bishop, I stopped in Salt Lake City for a week (Week 34) to quickly visit friends, pack up my belongings, and drop CB at the dogsitter’s house.  By week 35 I had taken the direct Salt Lake City to Paris flight followed by a train to Lyon.  Lyon was a bit of a hard destination for me, but (of course) there were still plenty of positive aspects.  The city truly was amazing with fabulous architecture and excellent food (I tried my first snails and frog legs, loving both of them immensely). And the stop in Lyon forced me to take a week break from climbing, a much needed rest period.

I stopped by Lyon because it was a mere couple hours from Fontainebleau and wanted to visit my friend, David, who I had meet in the Red River Gorge.  Here is David on the day I arrived.  We stopped by his favorite bar for a couple drinks prior to catching a fabulous meal at a neighboring restaurant.

I hadn’t visited Europe since 2003.  I truly love Europe… with it’s history, architecture, culture and wide spread use of bikes. =)

This building, La Fresque Des Lyonnais, was fabulous.  I saw this painting on a walk during the day, but completely missed the other side of the building, the side that holds the main beauty.  David was actually excited I had missed it so that he could personally take me there that evening.  The whole building was painted from top to bottom with a popular figures from Lyon history either walking down the street or peering out each window.  On my last evening in Lyon I spent a good amount of time simply enjoying this piece of artwork as the sun set.

The bridge over the Saone river at night.

We ended up playing a lot of cards in Lyon.  Pierre, on the left, really loved Texas Hold ‘Em.  I actually love the game as well, but hadn’t played for years.  One night we watched the football game (soccer for us Americans) at Pierre’s house while playing poker and drinking wine and champagne.  It was one of my best nights in Lyon.

Surprisingly, my favorite thing about Lyon was the graffiti.  I loved it! It seems most of the graffiti I have seen in the States are scribbled letters.  But the graffiti in Lyon were mainly of characters, simply etched on the wall… almost adding to the atmosphere.

I really liked this character, exclaiming his love for Lyon while marching on the bridge.

And yet another one.  I seriously have more pictures of graffiti than anything else in Lyon. =)  I spent a lot of time walking around and simply enjoyed stumbling across the vivid paintings.