Amanda, Emily, & Muriel's Lyon Adventure

On Saturday Pat was nice enough to stay behind in Morges with the older kids while Amanda, Muriel, and I took a day trip to Lyon, France. We, of course, did not spend a small fortune on train tickets to travel to this ancient city for something as mundane as museums, history, or architecture. Ooooh, nooo (as Niamh would say)! We went for food. Our first stop was the famed Bernachon chocolate shop where we loaded up on pastries and chocolates. Here is Amanda pictured in front of Bernachon.

Next stop was a whopping one door down at the Bernachon tea room where we each had a hot chocolate and a quiche. It was no surprise that both were fabulous.

Afterwards, we naturally felt in need of some lunch, so we made our way to Vieux Lyon on the Metro without getting lost, and were only sidetracked by chocolatiers twice.

I've been wanting to eat at one of Lyon's famous bouchons for a long time, and really wish we could have gone to one of Molly Wizenberg's recommendations, but with the time constraint of only one day we decided on a Rick Steve's recommendation that was a bit more centrally located. I am going to make one of Molly's bouchons top priority on my next visit!

We ate at La Machonnerie where the food was delicious and there was a lot of it. Amanda thought she would go light and just order a soup and salad, but both came in enormous serving bowls that held enough for two or three people. I got a three course menu, which I did not even come close to finishing.

Muriel was surprisingly patient during our two hour meal. I think she was glad for a chance to be on the ground for a bit. The photo on the right is from the final cheese platter course. I choose the creme version, and we think what is pictured below is Crème fraîche. It was good on the bread, although one of us might have had the idea that it would be even better on a Bernachon chocolate. And the other one of us might have readily agreed.

After lunch we felt we'd really better see at least a few of the non-stomach-related sights of Lyon so we wandered (or maybe waddled) around the old town for a bit, which is famous for it's over three hundred covered passageways (traboules).

We also ran across some Roman ruins, pictured below.

We ended our day not long after the ruins, as Muriel caught some sort of stomach bug, threw up everything she'd eaten that day, and then some. Despite leaving on that somewhat sour note (Muriel recovered after a couple of hours) Amanda and I were quite satisfied with ourselves for accomplishing the majority of our missions, as well as our superior navigational skills. I was sad to miss the pork cracklings (from Little House on the Prairie as well as Orangette), but there's always next time!