Lyon

On Sunday we were going all in on Lyon.
I was the reise leiter and Johanna was the tourist, of course a given success.
The trip had also another purpose then sightseeing , Fredrik was arriving to Lyon with train from Paris and he was arriving too late so no trains or buses were going to Grenoble at this hour.

Anyway Lyon is approximately one hour drive from Grenoble and going on a Sunday as we did is not bad. Traffic is less and the city centre is not that crowded the drawback is of course that many of the stores are not open.

The Lyon plan was to start out going with the metró and funiculaire up to Fourvière from here you have a nice view of the whole city, here you can also visit a Roman amphitheatre. After strolling around for some while the plan was to walk down to Vieux Lyon, so this was about it I hadn't planned anything else, everything was improvised from this moment and on. On our way down to Vieux Lyon we were walking right into this cozy bouchon, and we ate the most delicious lunch. Actually this meal is the best I had since I arrived to France. I did however a mistake for desert choosing figs drenched in wine which was not that good Johanna choose more wisely ordering a superbe chocolate cake.

We spent the afternoon strolling around the Presqu'ile and Vieux Lyon these parts can be considered as the heart of the city and is great for walking with small and old alleys in the old town to the more open and wider avenues with typical Hausman architecture in the Presqu'ile area.

In the evening we strolled down to place Bellecour in Presqu'ile to find a bouchon where we could eat. We decided to go for a fish restaurant and of course they couldn't match the expectations we had, we were hoping that all restaurants in Lyon was as good as the place were we had our lunch. By the time we hade finished our three coarse dinner the hour was quite late and the sun had been down form some time. During the nights in Lyon the light up all of the important buildings, I would say that this is the best time for a walk in Lyon.
Before picking up Fredrik at the central station we concluded the day by having a drink in a bar close the place des Terraux.
So to conclude we had another great day in France, Lyon is a nice city and is of course even better with lovely company, as I had today. Thanks to you Johanna for your picture contributions.

Last weekend in March

So since I haven't been writing for some while I want to go back a few weeks writing what happened in late march.

So the last weekend in March I started by spending the Friday evening out on town being shopping and drinking support to Johanna, visiting the Choranche caves and spending the Sunday in Lyon.

Ok so perhaps I was not a very good shopping support and Johanna already has a quite good taste so didn't have to do that much, so I was focusing more on the drinking part in which I of course managed excellent as usual. By coincidence we found this place where they had a theme only for this night, splitting the place into two section one with angels and the other one with demons. They had actually done a great job with the interior and all of the waiters was also dressed according to the theme. Anyway the evening was great in spite waking up with some headache the day after. Lessons learnt from the evening was the French words pilot and rond meaning really drunk.

Saturday activities included a trip to the caves in Choranche, these caves are situated up on the Vercors plateau. The nature was stunning with waterfalls and stunning views. The caves itself was perhaps not that exciting. The cave tour included also a tacky show showing a movie on cave ceilings. The movie was about dinosaurs and volcanoes I was not very impressed.

I spent the evening with Johanna and Mikael drinking wine and eating cheese as so many evenings before and you really never get bored when spending time with these guys. I also opened the Puech Haut wine I've been saving since the wine tasting session, and it met the expectations.

Biking and some wine drinking

I've been quite lazy recently not updating the blog as much as I would like to. So I will make some effort updating it on everything that been happening in April.

The past couple of weeks the weather has been approving a lot, for example we've been having sunny weather and over 20 degrees for the last weeks, very comfortable. This also means a transition from the skiing activities to something else. I say something else because I don't know for sure what I want to do. However there are plenty of alternatives such as mountainbiking, sailing, kitesurfing, windsurfing and hiking just mentioning a few. You could also ski for a couple of weeks more but it's not very good, it's to warm transforming the snow into strange porridge.

Anyway I actually bought myself a mountainbike this weekend, and there was no reason to wait so we went out biking directly after our purchase. I say we, because Fredrik also bought a mountainbike I also feel sorry for Mikael because when were heading back to City Suites he found out that his bicycle probably have been stolen.
We went to a nearby park in Grenoble with the name Parc ile d'Amour (island of love), here we found a trail leading to a nice lake, I was actually hoping for something like this, bringing my bathing kit. This was my first swim this year the temperature in the was around 18 degrees, it was great after doing some biking.





We finished the day by attending a vine buffet at the La Bastille in Grenoble, and as most people know, a drink as much as you can evening isn't very good for your health, this was also the case for this session waking up with a terrible headache. Anyway the evening was great with nice company, decent finger food and of course as much as white wine, red wine and champagne as could handle. I also let the night people of Grenoble know of my French language skills talking way too much in relationship to my actual knowledge, don't think anyone understood a word I was saying.


In spite the hangover and headache (Fredrik was feeling even worse then I did but I somehow managed to activate him) I manag'ed to get myself out from the bed. I've been doing some research finding the lakes that exist in the near vicinity of Grenoble, this day I wanted to go to lac d'Aiguebelette and since Fredrik was still drunk he was up for everything as long as he could sleep in the car. We biked for just a couple of kilometres reaching a quite crowded beach both of us was tired and we fell a sleep in a instance sleeping next to the shore, before we left I went for a swim in the lake. On our way around the lake we found several nice restaurant lying perfect with scenic terraces facing the lake. We stopped by eating ice cream in the sun relaxing and enjoying the scenic view.