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Lyon: Day 2

I had the luxury of sleeping in past 9:00 today, which felt amazing after having to wake up at 5:00 yesterday. There was no plan for today other than dinner, so we took it pretty easy. First, there was a trip to the local bakery, of course. Breakfast/brunch consisted of a tangy rhubarb pastry, apple tart, and plain Viennese roll. Bonus: in Lyon, it's possible to get your pastries and coffee from the bakery! Granted, this means the coffee is probably not great, but it is convenient.

Next, we headed back to the apartment to take care of laundry and lounge around. That is something that's different in France - they don't have dryers at home, so laundry requires some planning in order to make sure your clothes are dry by the time you need them. Since we're leaving Lyon tomorrow, that meant we had to make sure our clothes dried in time for us to pack.

In the afternoon, we headed to downtown Lyon to walk around and run more errands - to the post office for stamps, grocery store to restock some supplies, and mobile phone stores to activate sim cards. All this was done at a leisurely pace, and with a pit stop at a board games store! It turns out the French enjoy games as well, and they're pretty efficient with their packaging - so a game box is only as big as it has to be. This means it's easy to fit into a small luggage!

After making our way further and further south, we decided to take the metro back up to the north end of Lyon, to Parc de la Tête d'Or. I had no idea how huge the park was - it took us about an hour to walk around its periphery, and it was a beautiful day to do it. So many people were out in the park - walking, cycling, tanning, picnicking. We discovered the park has a carousel, a zoo, a giant lake, and even a velodrome! As soon as we saw the velodrome on the map, we knew we had to make it our destination. Too bad there were no cyclists using it, and it was closed to the public.

After the walk, we headed back to the apartment, stopping for pastries on the way as a snack (dinner reservations had been made for 8:30). What a surprise - this bakery's almond croissants were the best yet! The flakiest croissant outer layer wrapped around almond filling that was extremely flavorful but not too sweet. It was heaven. We enjoyed the pastries in a local park, filled with kids who had just gotten out of school.

A bit of relaxation at the apartment preceded a much-hyped dinner at Le Garet, one of Lyon's best bouchons. Except, we didn't get to eat. When we arrived at the restaurant, we were told that we had missed our reservation, which was marked down as 7:30. They looked annoyed at our tardiness, and apologized briskly without leaving any doubt we were not welcome. I was shocked - there was no way I had gotten the time wrong. I had purposely tried to make reservations at each restaurant at 7:00 for this exact reason - and on the rare occasion that the restaurant refused to give us a 7:00 seating, I made sure to write down the time they had agreed to. But they looked displeased and I didn't have the means to argue (this reservation had been called in, so there was no "paper trail"). So, the only thing I could do was say sorry and leave. What a disappointment - I felt terrible. I had encouraged the 3 other people on this trip that Lyon was worth a second night because of the amazing food, and on this second night, we didn't even get to sit down at the restaurant we had reservations for. We wandered around the area and eventually found an Italian pizza restaurant nearby. I didn't bother suggesting any other Lyonnaise bouchons because they would never take a walk-in without a reservation.

The menu at the pizza place did have one Lyonnaise specialty: the Lyonnaise salad. I ordered that, and we got a couple of pizzas to share. The salad turned out to be decent - a bed of greens topped with bacon, croutons, sunny-side up eggs, and dressing. The pizzas were passable (better than the-place-that-shall-not-be-named in Blois) but nothing compared to what we can get at home. Oh well, at least we were able to eat something.

We did have one Lyonnaise meal, so the trip wasn't a total loss. Better luck next time. Next stop - Avignon!

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