Avignon is a historical city in France, best known for its Palais des Papes (Palace of the Popes), where the Popes lived for much of the 14th century. Seven Popes (all French) resided in Avignon from 1309 to 1377 during the Avignon papacy.
We stopped by Avignon on our journey from Lyon to Nice for our lunch and a bit of extra time to have a walk around the city.
The Basilica Notre-Dame de Fourvière is located at Fourvière Hill, which offers a great view of the Lyon city.
Merci beaucoup, thank you Lyon.
We didn’t have much time in Lyon; it was just an overnight stay on our way to Nice from Paris. I didn’t manage to see much of the city, but I met some nice people.
After dinner, my sister and I decided to visit Fourvière, the highest hill in Lyon to have a night view of the city. We headed to the funicular station; the walking journey was a bit scary because the streets were dark, but we reached there safely… only to find out that we didn’t know how to purchase the funicular tickets.
We asked for help from some people standing nearby, they couldn’t understand English, but one of them was nice enough and went into the station office and led their station officer to assist us.
The officer could understand us but couldn’t communicate well in English… so he bought us the tickets, and led us to the waiting point, and told us that we would need to come down in 45 minutes because that would be the last funicular trip available.
Some people might think that it was some basic hospitality, but I really appreciate that. It might be a simple gesture for those people, but it helped us from lots of headache and troubles.
I can’t believe that we passed by Burgundy without tasting its famous red wine…
We were on our way from Paris (or Versailles to be precise) to Lyon. I didn’t see many vineyards though; perhaps we were on the highway and not really the wine region.
Park of Versailles is one of the largest formal gardens ever created.
The main attraction of the park is probably the variety of fountains that runs during weekends and some special holidays. My visit was on Tuesday unfortunately.
Au revoir Paris. I left Paris before the sunrise and headed to Palace of Versailles (Château de Versailles) along with some tour-mates. My sister was not joining the Versailles’ visit as she has been there before, while some other tour-mates decided to stay in hotel instead.
We went to a dinner cum cabaret show at night, sort of a Moulin Rouge show.
It was an optional excursion, I was not sure of going because it was quite pricey (over 100€ per person), but my sister convinced me that it’s something that we should experience at least once in our life time. Besides, she paid the bills… I had nothing to complain about.
I was hoping to see the cabaret in Moulin Rouge; but we went to somewhere nearby instead. I forgot the name of the place, but it was quite a venue… the set up was amazing, the food was just decent but the show was great.
I am not sure how to describe the show… music, dance, stunt, nude and drama. Excitement is not the best word, it was more like enlightenment instead… the performance was so different from my cultural comfort zone; everything on stage was just so new and mind-opening, it was like wandering into a brand new world.
It was a wonderful experience… but I don’t think I will go for another cabaret show again. It is something that is worth witnessing once in a lifetime, just once.
