Lyon

Day 4

When Jay got up this morning to go to the business session I woke up and finished up yesterdays blog, got myself and Sophie all ready to leave later, texted Mom to confirm we were on track to have breakfast at 9:30am and had a shower.  In the shower I washed my hair and then grabbed the conditioner.  I put extra conditioner in my hand because my last shower it didn't seem very slippery, so I figured I didn't use enough.  As I was putting the little bottle away something caught my eye...the words Body Lotion.  Oh my God. 

This morning after breakfast we are leaving to pick up the rental car.  The Europcar location is only about 5 minutes walk from the hotel so we are just going to roll our carry-on bags up to the location, pick up the car and be on our way.  Its a 4 hour drive, so no problem.  The only problem was that the GPS took us up the road and then there was a detour so we chose to go right instead of left, which was wrong, so we looped back around and took the road I figured we were supposed to take on the left and then a right, through an underpass and onto the highway.  Only we got turned on the right and we’re behind a car behind a van headed toward the underpass and stopped.  The van was too tall to make it through the underpass so a guy came up and asked us to back up so the car in front could back up so the van could back up - are you kidding me?  There are cars behind me and in front of me, all on very narrow streets.  I managed to back up and pull forward with a 4 or 5 point turn and the guy in front of me (basically our front bumpers were touching) clapping at me through his front windsheild.  I'm saying "Don't be a dick, what do you want me to do" Mom is saying "oh look, he's telling you good job".  Uh no.  He is like, now that you've turned around here I can't turn around here and I'm stuck, nice job.  Too bad for him.  Now we're going the really long way and the GPS is saying we have a 4 hr 30 min trip - oh well, we finally got out of Cannes, that's all that matters.

Jay finds the speed I’m driving note worthy. 

Cool rock formation that blurred past our car. 




About an hour and a half into the drive Sophie says she's hungry.  She's still sick, so she didn't have a lot of breakfast.  So my Mom gives her her yogurt drink we took from the buffet earlier and I ask her to take a look to see what towns are coming up that we can stop at.  There is Cavaillon coming up or Avignon just after that.  I've heard of Avignon before so I'd like to stop there, get out, do a little walking around, have lunch and explore and then get back in the car towards Lyon.  Steve Faust would NOT be able to do a road trip with me, but because I was driving that's exactly what we did.  Once we got into Avignon we put the Palais du Papes into the GPS figuring it was central in the Old Town and tried to find parking close to it.  

At one point I was trying to take the car down a narrow bicycles only road (it's a pretty small car) but Mom got out to guide me and decided that I should probably reverse and go back the way we came.  lol.  We had seen a yellow hotel sigh with a P that we assumed was for parking, but no. 

We followed a yellow road on the GPS, which marked a more 'main' road and I saw a parking garage so pulled quickly in there, parked and we got out and walked.  As we left I said to Jay “should we pin where this is?” Very handy. I still took a photo just in case we couldn’t find it. 

We spent a couple of hours in Avignon, including having lunch in a nice square with a carousel.  The square also had a busker dressed as a statue and Paige wanted to give him money to see him move, but she didn't want to be the one to give him money.  Mom said "Chicken...you've got to get over this chicken thing" and Paige said "I'm not afraid of a chicken!"

Sophie still isn't feeling great and at lunch had her head on the table and Jay was teasing her.  He said "Oh look, you're smiling"...I asked if it was on purpose or if gravity was pulling her lips up because her head was down.  I’m sure she’s enjoying her trip to France. Lol. 

The sun was VERY hot on the table at lunch and it got uncomfortable so Mom and Paige went to do a little wander around until Jay got his meal, which was a little later than the rest of us because he ordered a salad first which arrived with our lunch and then his entree didn't come until we were all done (for quite a while).  We've been meaning to get the girls notebooks so that they can do some journaling while they're missing school, so we found a store with some fun ones and then asked the clerk for pens or pencils (I asked in french), so she pointed to some that they had in the corner.  Paige found some other ones and I called to Sophie and said for her to come look at these and the clerk asked the girls names.  I told her and she said "Ah, no, there is no Sophie or Paige", it took a second and then I realized the pens were personalized.  I said "Ah, ton nom!"  Paige was holding a turquoise one so I said "Est-ce que tu veux t'appelle Hélene?  Ou Vivienne" and the clerk laughed and said "Ou Sabine?" Non.  Sophie got a regular pen and Paige got a plain old pencil.  haha.

We walked around the Palais du Papes and around the back.  I wanted to go up the steps and figured we could get around the Palais and Mom wanted to walk back the way we had come.  She sent me up the steps to see if we could get around and Sophie said "I don't like stairs"  You sound like Gram, come on.  So we went up the steps and I called down to them to have them come up.  When they got to the top I said "I don't know where this goes, there are more steps over here, come on".  Gram wasn't happy, but we did get down the other side with a lovely view over the rooftops and of a bit of the river.

What goes up, must come down. 







Oh Sophie. 



Paige is having some struggle with reading so every now and then will ask me “Do you need to be able to read to do nails?” So we have a conversation about how you have to be able to read to do every job. Not two minutes later we see this University.  Paige thinks this is the place for her. 

Back on the road and on the way to Lyon, we have about 2 hours left of our drive and should arrive around 5:30pm.  As we got close I asked Jay to start to pay attention as navigator so make sure we found our hotel, Hotel Carlton, ok.  Turns out it was not as easy as it seemed.  So again we did a few loops and then I saw a parking garage so I just made an executive decision to pull in and park and avoid the stress of trying to find parking closer to the hotel, which seemed to have one way streets moving away from it like the suns rays in all directions.  We popped up out of the underground parking just in the square in front of the hotel - very fortuitous. When we checked in Mom asked the guy at the check in desk about parking and he said that a few months ago they had changed the directions of all the one way streets, but the GPS's haven't caught up yet so it makes it very difficult.

We did a little unpacking when we arrived in the room, but pretty much turned around to go back out because I wanted to do some walking around while there was still light.  This is the room, the bed is at one end and the living area at the other, and we have a small balcony that overlooks the square.  

Mom can see a mini Eiffel Tower from her room. 

We walked to a covered pedestrian street that you can see from the square and there were a bunch of hat shops and luggage shops.  

I told Mom she should look for a passport holder, because she had admired mine when we were going to Costa Rica last year.  She said "I can just buy one at home".  Why would you buy one at home when you can buy one in Lyon?!  So we went into a shop and asked if they had any and were shown a couple.  Mom pulled her passport out of her purse to see if it would fit well into the organizer, decided it would and then settled on a red version of the one she had tried.  Its very nice.

We went from there up the street and saw a big fountain so took a few photos while Mom went back to the leather store because she had forgotten her passport slipped into the first holder she had tried.  Oops.

Sophie isn’t in the photo because she said “I don’t find this interesting”. 

We walked around for a long time after that looking for a place to eat and ended up looking on TripAdvisor and going to this Italian place (because you know we don’t like French food). Mom and Jay had Caprese salad, I had Carpaccio, Sophie and Paige shared cheese pizza and Jay ordered a diavola pizza and Mom rigatoni.   It was all delicious, especially the caprese!

The server asked us, in French, if we spoke French and we said “a little” and he said but you understand. So then told us all the specials in French. When he left the table Mom said “so what are the specials?”  I have no idea, I know I want the Carpaccio. We did explain a couple of the options but she stuck with the Caprese and pasta. 

During dinner Sophie said something and I said “Liar” and Mom gasped. So I said “Negatory” and she asked what that means “it means you’re a liar”. Sophie is still sick and really died at dinner. Jay has graciously offered to take her home early (to home home, he always likes to leave vacation a day early). I said he could go home early as long as he leaves Mom here. I also told him if he wants to go home on his own early he can. So we’ll see if that happens. I wouldn’t be surprised. 



It was empty when we got there but very busy by the time we left. 



We walked back to the hotel and went to bed. In the morning we’ll meet for breakfast and then head to gay Paris!