The Beaujolais Region

We drove out to the Beaujolais region on a perfect day to see the color and texture of this region.  It was about 1.5 hour from Lyon.  The destination is a family run vineyard and wine cellar.

One can get drunk by simply imbibed the color and texture of this land!

 
 

The couple who own and operate the estate are delightful.  They explained to us how they care for the vineyard:  prune down to only two trunks (one long and one short) after harvest, rubbed off the growth at the bottom when spring comes along, wire line the vines to prevent over growth, prune where appropriate, and planting two types of flowers to intimidate bugs and regulate drainage.....We then tasted four wines in their cellar, and tasted the sausage made by the hostess.  Lovely!

 

 

Lyon

Lyon is historically known as an important area with the production of weaving silk.  Now is known as the capital of gastronomy.  As soon as we docked, we received a presentation of silk printing from a local owner.  one print he showed was a history of how silk came from China to Lyon via silk road.

Then he also demonstrated the hand painting on a silk and ryon material.

To save money, we did not try any restaurant at this capital of gastronomy, but we bought some chess and bread.

As well as tasted some olives from the farmer's market:

A lieutenant of Caesar built a Roman colony at the Fourviere hill. One can see the remain of some ruin.  The Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourviere on the hill now stands high and attracts a lot of tourists.  Lyon is also a UNESCO world heritage site.

The Rhone river and Saone river converge at the south of the city.  The river is not wide and it was fun to walk back and forth a number of bridges.

Murals the Lyon way are quite interesting.  From afar, one might think this is a building with lots of windows.  But come closer, one finds that they are all murals with different stories.  I like it that my favorite Little Prince is right up there with the others.

 
 

One can also find a mural of library books on another building:

Numerous secret passages exist in the old town.  one enters one door one one street and come out at another door on another street.  The French resist ants had used these secret passages to meet and plan strategies and operation during WW War II.

Glorious or sad history is one thing, to enjoy the moment is my thing:

When we left Lyon and our ship Provence, we said good-bye to the captain and the crews and the flower tree of Lyon.  The last part of the journey was by bus.

Viviers and Tournon

While the white swans we saw in Viviers were beautiful, they were really mean when they fought for food.  It made us regret to feed them with our bread crumbs. But I guess it's life.

 



 

It was described that Viviers is a town lost in the middle age.  Once it had about 30,000 residents and now only 4,000 and occasional visitors.  We felt that we could be lost in its peace and quietness.

 

A small town (now) with a big Gothic cathedral.

I bought a pretty little bowl made by a local artist.  With her permission, I took a picture of her!

We ran into this lovely rainbow after we left Viviers and headed toward Tournon.  I was so lucky to catch it!

When we reached Tournon, we were already late for our home hosted dinner.  Our host are a lovely couple who love Americans.  It was a shame that we were unable to spend more time with them.  But I would always remember that our hostess locked my arm in hers and called me "my sister"!  And we sang Jingle Bells together when we walked toward their home.

Avignon, The Pope City

Our ship, Provence, docked at Avignon for us to visit this walled pope city.

 

 The famous broken bridge sitting on the Rhone river.

A street inside the wall:

 

The "Palais des Papes" (a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1995) showed once the enormous wealth of the church. The building of the palace started in 1252.  It was actually sad for me to see that church leaders so enriched themselves, and forgot the original teaching of Jesus.

 

 

This is a statue of the only woman who were allowed to enter the Palais des Papes as a supplier.