July 26
So the day had finally arrived, i was going to see the final leg of Le Tour De France! YAY! Being the last stage and in Paris we assumed people would be lining up and down the streets and everywhere would be packed...so looking at the route the previous night we decided on a stake out place, up at the crack of dawn (or 8.30am hehe) we were out of the hostel by 10am...walking to where we had decided we started to get very worried that our research from the night before was wrong...there were no signs, no roped off streets, no mention of the tour anywhere! we decided to keep walking, and thankfully after about 20mins we saw some police tape and a policeman and he kindly informed us that yes the tour would be passing through at about 3pm...only being about 10.30am we lazed in a beautiful public garden that was just beside the road...after a lazy morning and afternoon in the sun and a bit more colour added to the skin, about 1.30 we decided we should go ´reserve´ our seats...why did we bother? walking back up the stairs to the road we noticed that the street was remarkably bare except for a family on the other side camping out as well...surely this is the tour de france, the biggest bike race in the world and nobody was coming to watch? about 3.30pm a whole big motorcade of cars and sponsors came through entertaining the crowd and then about 4.30pm the riders finally rode past...even though we spent 6hours of doing nothing it was still totally worth it!
Our train was due to leave the train station at 4.55 so a very brisk walk and then taxi ride to try and get the 20mins back to the hostel, get our bags get to the train station and buy a ticket, and we only ended up missing the train by a couple of minutes because we totally hadn´t taken into consideration the fact that we aren´t the only people on the planet that need to buy tickets, and again as per all lines in france, the wait was over 15mins! what a crucial blow to our plans! was ok, because luckily there was another train an hour later (although it did cost an extra 20euro).
A quick train ride from Paris and we were in Lyon. WOW! Lyon is def the best place i have seen by far! Wasn´t a fan of Paris, but can´t speak highly enough of Lyon, just beautiful!
Our first morning we climbed the hill to the top of the city and saw the best church i have seen yet. While Canterbury Cathedral was big, this place was just magnificent and i hope the pics reflect this!
If we thought the church was great, the view from the balcony outside was even better! the architecture of the buildings is just incredible and while the buildings look old they are so well preserved and is hard to believe they really are so old! There are little lane ways everywhere that you can duck down and the rivers that run right through the centre of the city seperating business from pleasure pretty much...
That night we got back to our hostel with the intention of doing washing and writing journals, but the call of the terrace where laughter and beers could be heard clinking drew us away from our mundine chores haha!
At 12.30 we finally made a move to our beds, after being quite entertained by 4 english boys that were well and truly drunk when we arrived (what else can you expect from the english haha!) and i can def say that i am glad i was not travelling at 21 as i probably would have spent all my travel money on alcohol and not much sightseeing just as the were doing...but at least they were having a blast and gave us free entertainment for the night, lol!
July 27
In the morning we went for a stroll along the river and encountered street stalls and wandered along and bought a couple of small items we needed. We were due to leave today, but Lisa was feeling quite unwell so we booked another night and see slept from the afternoon right through to the morning, so i did the washing duty and a few small other bits and pieces.
July 28
This day was a day of rest, Lisa was still feeling a little off colour and so we basically sat in the park all day beside the train station and read our books and did some puzzles. Our bus to Lyon was due to leave at 9.15 and we had to go inside at 8.30 to reserve our seat. About 7pm a soup kitchen drove up near where we were lying and out of nowhere about 20-30 homeless people rocked up. They were fine until one person decided to come and talk to us, and then after that we had a constant stream of people coming up to us and between the drunkeness, us not being able to speak much french and them not being able to speak english we decided to get up and headed inside about 8pm.
The bus to Barcelona was quite uneventful, we arrived at 6.30am and have had some breakfast and checked into our hostel. Off now to do some sightseeing!
