Lyon — Our Clown Meets the Reception Committee
Our clown had made it to Lyon.So had we.The difference was that somebody was waiting for him.As the train pulled into Lyon Part-Dieu, two members of station security were standing on the platform. It soon became apparent that this was not a coincidence. The train staff had apparently tipped them off.Our travelling companion — the man who had spent much of the journey wandering around with two cans of beer, providing an increasingly surreal counterpoint to the very civilised progress of the TGV through eastern France — was about to have a conversation.Not with us.We left him to it.
There was something rather satisfying about the efficiency of the whole thing. Nobody had made a great fuss on the train. No drama. No shouting. The staff had observed what was happening, presumably decided that Lyon would be a suitable place to deal with it, and somebody was waiting when the doors opened.French theatre, perhaps, but very well organised French theatre.
Our own first challenge was considerably less dramatic.We had to find the metro.Lyon Part-Dieu is one of those stations which appears straightforward until you actually need to go somewhere. People were moving confidently in every direction, which is never reassuring when you are the person who has no idea which direction to take.
Eventually we found Line B.Buying a ticket was easy enough. Using it felt rather more serious. Lyon clearly does not subscribe to the idea that passengers might casually wander onto the metro. There are gates, barriers and ticket readers that require a certain commitment. You validate the ticket and the machinery decides whether you may enter the city.Permission granted.Down we went.
The metro itself was another surprise.Driverless.There is something slightly strange about standing at the front of a train and looking into a tunnel where a driver ought to be. The train simply departs, gathers speed and takes care of itself. After the gentle progress of our TGV southwards, this felt like a rather different France.A few stops later we emerged and started walking along Rue Vendôme towards the Hotel Taggat.
This was when Lyon began to make rather more sense.Not the Lyon of postcards or grand architectural statements. Just a neighbourhood.Blocks of buildings arranged almost like a chessboard. Long straight streets. Corners that reveal another almost identical stretch of city. Shutters, balconies, small restaurants, bicycles, trees and the occasional glimpse through an open window into somebody else’s evening.The area has a slightly shabby-chic feel to it.Not polished.Not trying terribly hard.I liked it immediately.
The Hotel Taggat fitted perfectly.My first encounter with it was not especially dignified. I desperately needed the loo.The public toilet downstairs turned out to be rather more interesting than many hotel receptions. Unusual decoration, a little theatrical, slightly eccentric. It immediately suggested that somebody here had made choices.The room continued the theme.We did not have a view.We had character.Given the choice, I will often take character.More importantly, the ventilator worked.
After travelling for most of the day, certain forms of luxury become wonderfully basic.Air.A shower.A bed.And somewhere nearby serving dinner.That somewhere turned out to be Hanuri Korean Grill.It was heaving.Always a reassuring sign.The beer of the moment was Gallia and the menu immediately transported us rather further east than Lyon. I ordered bibimbap with beef.At the table beside us was a young Korean family. Their phones were in full operation, naturally, while a Korean barbecue occupied the centre of the table.I had eaten something similar in Seoul last year.That was partly why we had chosen a Korean restaurant in Lyon in the first place. Sometimes travel produces these odd little circles. You go somewhere unfamiliar and end up deliberately eating something because it reminds you of somewhere else.The bibimbap hit the spot.No culinary analysis required.It was exactly what I wanted.Dessert completed the circle. Bingsu.We had first eaten it in Seoul, at the fish market. Here we were, thousands of kilometres away, finishing our first evening in Lyon with it again.
Outside, the evening was still warm.Balmy, really.We wandered back through the neighbourhood.This is one of my favourite moments in a city. Not sightseeing. Not looking for anything in particular. Just walking after dinner when people have returned home and the city becomes slightly transparent.Lights come on in apartments.Windows are open.You catch tiny fragments of other lives.A kitchen.Somebody standing on a balcony.A television flickering somewhere in the background.People talking over dinner.You are not really seeing anything, and yet somehow you are seeing the city.Lyon felt remarkably relaxed.No great arrival statement.No attempt to impress us.
Even the neighbourhood around the hotel seemed content to be itself.Shabby in places. Elegant in others. Lived in throughout.And somewhere back at Part-Dieu, I imagined our clown was probably having a slightly different introduction to France’s second city.Ours was considerably better.A driverless metro, a hotel with character, bibimbap, bingsu and a warm evening spent peering, entirely innocently of course, into other people’s apartments.Lyon had begun.