Eating & Sipping in France
Les Halles & Free Time
The following day we began our run-up to the cooking lesson at the Bocuse Institute by visiting Les Halles de Lyon, an indoor market established by Paul Bocuse. In addition to stalls selling produce, cheese, meat & fish, there were a number of eateries. After lunch at one of them, we had the afternoon and evening free. Jim & I visited a local botanical garden and then ate at a down-market (but yummy) Italian restaurant close to the hotel.
Agathe bought goodies for our appetizer before our meal. She selected a hard goat cheese, which is something that we don't normally find in the US, a cow cheese, some small sausages and bread for us to nibble on while waiting in one of the market's restaurants. She also bought a typical Lyonnais pastry for us to try and a traditional "pillow" sweet.
One of the market stalls offered these very expensive Bresse chickens. Agathe had the owners of the stall weight one of the birds so that we could see how much they cost. I forget the exact amount, but it was eye-popping. They have their heads & legs left on so that a customer can be certain she is getting the genuine article.
I'm glad that my tastes are not so discriminating that I'm tempted to such things.
This vendor had an assortment of beautiful pâtés. Food must not only taste good, it must look good and grace the table. This was true of the simplest country markets we visited.
One section of the market was devoted to fruits and vegetables.
This stand had several kinds of oysters among other offerings.
Sausage anyone?
Prepared foods are available as well and there were tables scattered around for eating.
We, however, ate in one of the restaurants in the market: Chez les Gones. (As best I can find out gones is Lyonnais slang for kids.)
For our free afternoon Jim & I caught the bus to the Parc de la Tête d'Or. We got turned around coming out of the market and walked several blocks in the wrong direction before we realized our error. Oh well, we needed the exercise after all that eating!
The botanical garden was created in the mid-nineteenth century. This is just one of the elaborate greenhouses.
A group of teenagers and their coaches used the path surrounding the green open space as an interval training track. The coach whistled and the kids sprinted as fast as they could. The coach whistled again and the kids froze. And so on.
It made getting to the greenhouse a game of dodge-em!
Well-tended plant designs surrounded elaborate statuary here and there.
No urban park would be complete without folks hanging out to enjoy the greenery and warm sunshine. We relished the downtime too.
As we cruised through the various sections of the park, however, we were at first dismayed that all of the park maps seemed to lack the customary "Vous êtes ici" indicators. Then we realized that they had all been worn away by countless fingers pointing at the map! After that we just had to look for the most worn spot and we knew where we were.
Getting back to the hotel was a bit more complicated than riding a single bus, but we eventually mastered the connections.
Although we had grand plans to return to the old city for supper in a nice restaurant, we ended up staying close to the hotel for something light. After all the elaborate meals, salade Niçoise was just the ticket for me. Jim had a small pizza.
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