In LYON, feeding the SOUL not with food but with SIGHTS

Lyon is a fitting escape for pilgrims of culinary wonder as well as soaking the hungry soul with the city’s cinematic sights.

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here are these moments in Lyon during summer when the heat seems to be far removed, tempered by a cool breeze where the Rhône River meets the Saône before rolling on toward the Mediterranean. It is at this time when tourists are baffled, mistaking the occurrence as a sign of autumn’s early arrival in this part of France.

To the locals, it is nothing more than a sensible excuse to linger on for a bit longer, laze in a chair after a petit dejeuner au balcon, or hang around in a café in town while the rest contemplates on a belief in food and conversation as daily sacraments.

It’s early in the day. The occasional dog walkers have joined the crowd of tourists in slow motion. Waiters ushered patrons inside restaurants as they skillfully juggled between serving and taking food orders non-stop.

Arriving in Lyon, one has a feeling of taking part in a pilgrimage, navigating up and down around a culinary Mecca and stumbling upon a colony of chefs and gastronomy aficionados engaged in a ritual of food worship.

Lyon is France’s third largest city. The jewel in the region of Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes and the gourmet capital of France (or perhaps the world). From Paris, it’s a short two-hour high-speed train ride south. There are more than two million year-round residents. Come summer, the number swells, and the city sags with tourists.

If Paris has its Seine, the river that divides the city into Left and Right Banks, Lyon is wedged in by two—the Rhône and Saône, of which one has to cross either side to get into its center. With the energy of a university town where talent and ideas surge, Lyon’s is as dynamic as it is sophisticated.

Visitors come to Lyon and spend time at the table acquiring wisdom of French nouvelle cuisine. I came to the city not for the ‘meal-of-a-lifetime’ but rather to feed my soul with the sights.

After all, Lyon isn’t just all about food—delicious-to-die-for food, bouchon, Brazier, Bocuse, and Boulud (like the holy trinity: Eugénie Brazier, aka Godmother, became the first chef to command six Michelin stars; Paul Bocuse, whose name is as holy as the Pope in the culinary world; and Daniel Boulud, a sought-after New York chef born in Lyon and a global culinary sensation). It is also, as any frequent traveler knows, a place that lends revelation.

I began my peregrination at the very heart of Presqu’ile, or peninsula, Place Bellecour. From here—the point zéro, all distances from Lyon are measured. A towering statue of Louis XIV presides in the middle of the square as if demanding one’s attention to look up and exalt the French’s Le Roi Soliel (the Sun King). Not far away is another statue, a more modest Prince and his creator, Lyon’s illustrious son and author, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

There is not much in the square that is challengingly exotic to see. There is a Ferris wheel, a couple of small cafés, and a tourist office. Yet, this humble open space lures tourists, romantics, and locals alike—le tout Lyonnais, if not idling around, are busy picnicking on baguettes, wines, and cheese. Come sunset, the square’s dusty patch of earth turns reddish, matching the sun’s fiery glow.

From Place Bellecour, I pulled out my map and checked the major thoroughfares that run through it. At Rue du Président Édouard Herriot, one is greeted by a throng of shoppers parading the street all the way to Place des Terreaux, a smaller square that houses the Lyon Fine Arts Museum. The museum showcases a fine collection of antiquities alongside works by Matisse, Picasso, Rubens, and several French Impressionists.

Rue de la République can feel like a miniature Paris as one passes along Haussmann-style apartment buildings. There is the unmistakably old Hôtel de Ville, Lyon’s city hall. Opposite is the Opera Nouvel, an ‘architecture tour de force’ . The old and the new seem to have found their way among the city’s structures. The two remaining thoroughfares, rue Victor Hugo and rue du Plat, lead to Perrache, the city’s old train station in the 2nd arrondissement.

Following my Airbnb host’s advice, I took the funicular up to the hilltop at Fourvière. My ascent was rewarded by a close-up view of Lyon’s most iconic monument, Notre Dame de Fourvière, a long-distant cousin of Montmartre’s Sacré-Cœur Basilica in Paris. Inside is a lavish decoration of Romanesque-Byzantine-style gilded mosaics and stunning stained glass windows dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

To the Lyonnaise, the Basilica is the physical representation of gratitude to the Virgin Mary, believed to have spared Lyon from the Black Death that swept across Europe in 1643.

The plague has long gone, indistinct in the city’s collective memory. But every 8th of December, the city pays tribute to its deliverance. Dubbed as Fete de Lumieres (Festival of Lights), the joyous event is celebrated with lights and splashing LED pageantry commemorating the Virgin.

A few meters away, heading east, I came across a Roman colony established around 43 BC. A grand theater spread out on an empty field, and a small odeon can be seen. Students sprawled with their backpacks and grazed around the theater like the former Lugdunum spectators did long ago.

At le vieux Lyon, a maze of streets that merge into alleyways awaited me in the old part of town. Buildings from a bygone era, where lives have come and gone, still remain and are remarkably well preserved. There were unmarked passageways that ran perpendicular to the river.

Back in the days when silk was Lyon’s greatest powerhouse, these passageways known as traboules helped Lyon silk workers to quickly access the river and their homes when delivering merchandise. Secret meetings were also held in the traboules during Nazi occupation. I imagined the countless whispered conversations that took place as well as secret plots that were hatched within the passageway walls during WWII.

I crossed over the Passerelle du Palais de Justice footbridge and then another bridge, passed a few shops and the narrow pedestrian rue de la Monnaie before circling back to where I started—le point zéro. I popped into a café nearby and ordered a hot chocolate and croissant.

Perhaps there is nothing more suitable than sitting in a café and spending what remains of my afternoon looking around. I watched construction workers pause for a break as they slapped three euro coins on the wooden bar for a small glass of rosé. Old men encircled themselves with cigarette smoke while engaging in serious, long philosophical chat.

From the window, I saw a woman tuck a baguette under her arm and a mother skillfully push two strollers past tall teenagers. At a corner, lovers locked in an embrace, kisses land on cheeks, lips, and necks. At the opposite café, heads floated in windows like ghosts.

I dipped my croissant in my cup of hot chocolate and let it soak as the city enveloped me with its act of conviviality. To dine in Lyon is to see and perhaps know a city of a peculiar, restless character. Lyon becomes a fitting escape not only for pilgrims of culinary journeys trying to feed their souls with ‘manna’ from Michelin star restaurants or deeply rooted bouchons but also, without a doubt, immersing in the city up close through its sights promising to nourish the hungry soul.

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