We were so excited to start the French leg of our journey – bread, cheese, wine, pastries and the freedom of a car for the first time in almost 3 months – wouldn’t you be excited?!

It took us a solid 9 hours to get to Lyon, but the trains were comfortable and we had plenty to distract us what with all our snacks, books, music and card games! Not to mention that train wasn’t even full so we were able to stretch out and relax…  Life’s little luxuries.

Once we got to Lyon and dropped our bags off at our accommodation, Roisin (who has thankfully become the official restaurant picker of the trip) found this delicious little Japanese restaurant just a few corners away. They had a huge selection of sushi and other delicious treats (gyros are quickly becoming one of our favourite food groups). We enjoyed the excellent, friendly service, plenty of wine (yay French wine!) and even helped sing a round of happy birthday to someone at the table behind us while we watched the masters prepare our food.

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After having thoroughly enjoyed our meals last night and even treated ourselves to a sneaky lie in (who are these new and revitalised people??) it was time to run a few errands this morning – like do our washing (we were all a bit stinky after the Oktoberfest experience, which I am sure is really no stretch of the imagination). Once everything was smelling lemony fresh again it was time to explore Lyon – the 3rd largest city in France! Our hotel concierge advised us to go down the street and catch the bus into town. Now I am not entirely sure what made us believe her, as she has only an hour or so earlier lead us up a garden path while trying to find a laundromat, but clearly we had not learnt our lesson. We waited ages at the bus stop, and when the bus finally did arrive and we navigated ourselves to the correct location we realised it would have been super easy to just catch the metro (perhaps we were not that new and revitalised after all). Once in the centre of Lyon, all our negative thoughts fell away as we walked around this diverse city filled with outstanding museums, a dynamic cultural life, a thriving university, fantastic shopping and some of the most fabulous gastronomic experiences in France.

We walked by the striking Opéra de Lyon and ended up on the banks of the Saône river, where we managed to catch the end of the Marché de l’artisanat et des métiers d’art and meandered through the mix of stalls by sculptors, painters, jewellers, fashion designers, poets and musicians. Starting to get a bit hangry, we headed towards our chosen lunch spot but for the life of us we could not find it (which was very confusing – we thought we had found it but it had a different name, not really sure why we just assumed it was the same restaurant, might have been our starving brains eating away at our sense of logic). However, we did find ourselves in a square full of other options, so we just chose one and sat down. To our good fortune, we did love our meals, but as we stood and turned to leave at the end of our meal, we spotted the EXACT venue we wanted to eat at originally. I think we must have lost our collective peripheral vision (or perhaps all our sense).

Continuing our exploration of Lyon we heading towards the main square of Lyon, Place Bellecour (which is also one of Europe’s largest public squares). As we turned the corner, instead of having an unobstructed view of the enormous and gravel-strewn 17th century square, we were met with barriers, booths, and a race track all set up for the World Skate Cross series 2016. Now don’t get me wrong, I have absolutely no idea what that means, but apparently roller skating is a big thing and this is where the best skaters challenge each other for the World Champion title. We were very curious so ventured past the barriers and into the square where we watched people zip around the obstacle course track, a man dressed in a Rollerman suit (which I just learnt was a thing) and the learners slowly stumble around an arena surrounded by inflatable plastic. It was weird, wonderful and unique, I have a new and confused appreciation for roller skating.

Taking a leaf out of the skaters book, we decided to roll instead of walk up to see the Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière. The one downside was a bizarre man yelling crazily at one of the funicular conductors (not exactly sure what about) to a point where his young daughter started to cry and the crowd of people waiting in line stared on in horror. We felt absolutely terrible for this little girl, and made up a back story for them. It went something  along the lines of a divorced dad who only gets to see his daughter ever second weekend, the daughter does not really love leaving mum to go and see him, perhaps money troubles, he tried to plan a nice day with her but nothing went to plan and resulted at him abusing a stranger and her standing alone crying…. Not sure how far off we were. As the funicular moved further up the hill, that was getting steeper ever second, we could not have been happier with our choice. We exited our compartment and walked up the steps to see the Basilique crowning the hill. Not only is it a superb example of French architecture, but the position affords it stunning city panoramas from its terrace. Apparently on a clear day one can see all the way to Mont Blanc. We took a bunch of photos but couldn’t go inside the main part of the church as mass had started, so we ventured down into the lower section which was in itself quite stunning.

Our plan for dinner had been to take Roisin out to dinner to celebrate her birthday. Of course we did celebrate on her actual birthday, but we were at Oktoberfest and we wanted to have a meal which was actually about her birthday. So we all got a bit dolled up, picked a nice restaurant and stepped outside. Not a moment later we stepped back inside the hotel covered in rain. It was a bit of a bummer but we decided to cancel our original plan as the restaurant was quite a walk away, and headed to a pizza place just down the road (which we chose really because it was the only place open) and really had a lovely evening full of laughter (even though we were slightly overdressed) and planned to make a special dinner destination during our road trip.