Day 4 (Molly): Besançon — Lyon
Had a much needed sleep last night and woke up wide eyed and ready to go this morning. James checked his phone and I saw his little face light up. It turns out that he had ‘connected’ on LinkedIn with Stewart McCracken… some bloke from channel 5 – if only he loved me this much…
Headed south into the city of Besançon to find some breakfast and have a mooch around. A man stopped for what we assumed was to ask for directions and James replied in French “I do not speak French”. The man must have understood somewhat and thanked us in English for the help anyway.
We found a place (Cafe leffe) for a coffee (they’re very strong here in France) and planned our next move.
After we had our coffee stop, we searched for a patisserie for some breakfast and found a lovely little place, Poulaillon. This time James’ French attempt failed as he tried to ask “Do you speak English please?” and was met with a blank look. We proceeded to ask is they spoke English (in English) and the lady replied “a little”… this was enough. Croissants and Macaroons as standard.
We decided to explore some of the older parts of town before leaving for our next destination. We came across perhaps the oldest buildings we had ever seen - built in 11th century, La Porte Noire de Besançon and Cathedral of Saint John of Bensançon (which had some parts rebuilt in the far more recent 18th century)… amazing.
Carried on up some steep steps (that seemed to go on for a lifetime) towards a 17th-century fortress. The views were stunning. However, it typically started to rain sideways yet again. We’d actually seen on the French news that there were storms and flooding where we were just 1 night before…. let’s get moving shall we 😬.
Headed due south towards Lyon, France’s 3rd largest city. On the way we saw our first break in the clouds since we’d been here. The sun still exists!
Checked in at Lyon around 17:00 and dumped our stuff in the room. I needed to relax for a bit after a 3hr drive from Besançon before deciding what to do for tea. We realised that we were in Lyon on a Friday night and so wanted to get the atmosphere of the place and drive into town.
After parking the car and having a walk around, we ended up in a 100% authentic Italian restaurant (again oops, we love Italian food)… talk about from one extreme to another. James used his French line “Sorry, we do not speak French” again and the lady replied in Italian… it turned out this was all she spoke. We got through though with a laugh and a giggle with the waitress who was extremely polite and even started asking us to correct her in English. James was happy he got to use his Italian accent (very over the top) and I even caught him mouthing small phrases over and over again in practise for when we say bye “buena notte”… hilarious. There is no picture of the food because it was so good that we forgot to when it came.
We headed back to our hotel, bellies full and still unknowing of what may happen tomorrow!
