Rhone Day 9: Vieux Lyon

 Our last day we enjoyed a walking tour of Rennaisance-era Vieux Lyon (Old Lyon).

The cobblers street still sells shoes.

According to the sign in the window, this used book store specializing in alphabet books and primers was open "de temps em temps" or by appointment.

The most fun was tunnels between streets. We entered this one at what looked like an ordinary entry at #6.

On the other side of the door was a tunnel under the apartments on the upper floors.

Half way through was a window well to give light to these 16th-c apartments. The landlord would have lived in the tower.

For this let's-see-what-lies-around-the-next-corner girl, it was hard to resist climbing these stairs.

Another opening, another tower, further along the tunnel.

This tunnel past this stairway didn't go to the next street.

It led to a courtyard with an artist's shop.

Given some free time for shopping, Ingrid and I wandered toward the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.

From there we could see across the square to the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourviere that we visited yesterday.

Ingrid had been in Lyon before. She remembered being moved by ruins of a church somewhere, but didn't remember where. We took a different route back to our meeting place. When we rounded the cathedral, there they were--ruins of the 4th-c Church of St. Stephen.

Remember those tortured martyrs from AD177 memorialized in the basilica mosaic? Their faith didn't die. It was still here in the 4th century and even in the 21st.

This was our last night on the Van Gogh. Despite all the pictures in this blog, the music has been the highlight of the trip. We travelers bonded over our evenings in the lounge, sharing musical memories of the day and enjoying "our" musicians. I would like to put together a playlist of what we heard, but most of the recordings would not be played by Jackie and Aloysia. We'll just have to plan that trip to the Orcas Island Chamber Muisc Festival.

*Jacob Gade – Jalousie (written by a Danish composer, a compatriot of Thomas Søndergård)

 

Fréderic Chopin – Waltz in A minor (newly discovered at the Morgan Library in 2024)

 

Edvard Grieg – Notturno (in honor of the Minnesota Orchestra’s Nordic Festival where Jackie will perform the MAX Concerto by Anders Hillborg in November 2026)

 

*Jake Heggie – Crossing from Orcas Island Ferry (with a discussion of Aloysia Friedmann’s Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival presenting its 29^th season, including a Grand Piano Spectacular, in August 2026)

 

Claude Debussy – Claire de lune

 

Claude Debussy – Les soirs illumines par l’ardeur du charbon (discovered in 2001, written in exchange for more coal to keep Debussy warm)

 

*Astor Piazzolla – Oblivion (Piazzolla also studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. Years later Aloysia performed with him in New York City)

 

*Astor Piazzolla – Libertango (a program bookended by tangos!)

 

*Herman Hupfeld – As Time Goes By from Casablanca (“We’ll always have Paris…”)

In the morning we go our separate ways. But MPR, MSO and Earthbound Expeditions are already making plans for our next musical excursion, so some of us will reunite then. My husband emailed me part way through this trip that next time, he wants to come with me. I don't think it will be too difficult to convince Jack and Ingrid to consider joining us. As Jackie reminded us, we'll always have Paris.

 

Rhone Day 9: Lyon Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourviere

Lyon is the city we visited that I would most enjoy going back to (along with some of the delightful small villages.)

We took a bus up the hill to the 19th-c Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourviere. 

The 19th century is relatively modern, but the church is still spectacularly beautiful.

I loved the detail work. It's much fresher and less worn than stuff five hundred years older. Duh.

And then there is the interior.

I took untold ceiling pictures on our Danube trip. This one was worth a look as well.

And don't forget the floors.

This mosaic honors 48 2nd-c martyrs from Lyon and Vienne tortured to death in the arena after being falsely accused of cannibalism among other things.

Outside was this relaxing square

with wonderful views of the city below.

The mistral winds blew strong up here. Even Pope John Paul II's robes are waving in it.

A path led down and around to this view back up at the church.

If I had had the time to continue on it, it would have brought me to the Roman theaters still in use today. (More probably again in use.)

Rhone Day 8: Truffle farm and Grignan

We have had two wine tastings and an olive oil tasting. Today it was truffles. And I don't mean the chocolate kind. So what is a truffle? It's an edible fungus that costs $1,000-3,000 per pound. Our farmer spoke only French so our local guide translated his explanation while the dog-lovers in our group made over his canine assistants.

This lovely wood is full of truffles, growing in a symbiotic relationship with the trees. It's finding them that is the challenge.

Our farmer uses dogs instead of the pigs you may have heard of. Pigs love truffles and will consume them before you have a chance to dig them up if you can't haul them off quickly enough. Dogs can be trained to sniff out the ripe truffles, paw the ground to show where they are just an inch or so below the surface, and be happily rewarded with a treat as this one is here. 

New truffles ripen every day, so dog and master go daily for a walk in the woods and return with a few thousand dollars in the master's pockets.

I thought the truffle would be soft like a mushroom (a different species of fungus) but the outside is hard as a rock. It reminded me of a geode with something precious inside.

We tasted a variety of spreads on bits of toasted baguette with glasses of local wine. Lovely! My favorite was truffle with black olive. 

We had some time to explore the near-by village of Grignan.

It was market day. The strawberries were oh so sweet!

At the top of the street is the old laundry. (Not quite what I had in mind when the women of Bethlehem are washing clothes at the fountain in my recent book The Innkeeper's Wife.)

One side is for washing, the other for rinsing.

It was no longer cloudy, as you can see, but it was still quite cold and VERY windy. The mistral winds sweep down the Rhone valley at as much as 60 mph. They almost blew us off our feet climbing to this castle.

The views were fabulous.

Ingrid had to stop to get her balance in the wind as we rounded the castle walls to this church.

The roof of the church is the terrace of the castle.

Windows can only be on the south side of the church since the north is built into the mountain.

We hiked back down delightful little streets and stairways,

Returning to our ship and the cruise to our next stop: Lyon

We enjoyed the evening's recital as we sailed.

*Jacques Offenbach – Can-Can from Orpheus in the Underworld

 

Fréderic Chopin – Minute Waltz (originally titled the Little Dog Waltz, in honor of those who sniffed out truffles for us in the morning)

 

Fréderic Chopin – Winterwind Etude (in honor of the powerful Mistral!)

 

*Jules Massenet – Meditation from the opera Thaïs

 

George Gershwin – Rhapsody in Blue (written by one of many American composers who searched out Nadia Boulanger in Paris for composition lessons)

 

*Maurice Jarre – Lara’s Theme from Dr. Zhivago (Jarre was born in Lyon)

Rhone Day 7: Avignon

Do NOT watch this video. If you do, you won't be able to stop singing "Sur le Pont d'Avignon l'on y danse, l'on y danse. 

Whoops! Probably just reading those words has already put the 15th-c folksong in your head. Sorry about that, but we were singing it for a couple days in and around Avignon.

There is enough traffic on the river that at times two boats moor side by side with passengers passing through one to get to the other. In Avignon, we were the boat on the outside, transiting the lobby of the other boat to reach the dock. Last evening when the inner boat was ready to embark, rather than wait mid-river, our captain took us on a short cruise to "le pont d'Avignon". Actually, the Saint Benezet Bridge.

The original wooden bridge was completed in 1185, but was burned by soldiers in 1226. It was rebuilt in stone, but river flooding destroyed it so often that efforts to rebuild were abandoned in the 17th century. Now it is more like a pier, too narrow for much dancing in the round.

The next morning we were off for a walking tour of Avignon. The day was still cold and cloudy so my pictures are disappointing, but at least it was not as windy as yesterday.

Avignon looked like a stereotype of a fairytale town. The walls were built in the High Middle Ages, and I suppose illustrators of fairy tales have often used them for inspiration.

Of course, it is also a modern city, and just inside the medieval walls are modern apartment buildings.

Notre Dame des Doms was originally built in the 12th-c with renovations in the 15th and 17th. It's beautiful, but we were headed to the 14th-c Palais des Papes.

past narrow lanes

and the modern (19th-c) Hotel de Ville (town hall).

The palace really did look like something out of a fairytale with those tall, pointed tower tops.

Ingrid suggested this might be the popes' helipad.

This is essentially what the interior of the palace looked like when the troops moved out and restoration began in 1906. 

The French Revolution (beginning in 1789) was, of course, no friend to the Catholic Church which had supported the aristocracy in their abuse of the people for centuries. Churches and palaces like this, which were still papal lands even after the popes returned to Rome in the early fifteenth century were sacked. You can see on the walls of this hall where it was divided into three stories as a barracks to house soldiers. Windows were knocked in the medieval wall on the left to let light into the second and third floors. Those have since been refilled in the restoration.

Even the chapel was divided into multiple floors. The pointed tops of the gothic windows were removed as too religious, and restored in the twentieth century.

I'm a suckor for miniatures. This one shows the palace complex.

I'm also a sucker for cozy places to sit with a cup of tea and a book, although I would want some nice needlepoint cushions to enjoy this one.

Our local guide focused on the architecture and the broadest sketches of history, avoiding the opulence and corruption the Avignon popes were famous for. I wished I had spent a bit more time reading up on them before coming. The whole things started when French Pope Clement V (former bishop of Provence) refused to move to Rome. Avignon was a much nicer place to live when Rome was a dirty heap of ancient ruins. I imagine it was like a choice between New York and Cairo, IL.

This courtyard was being prepared for the annual Avignon Arts Festival when we came through. I guess it takes months to set up and months to take down the stage for the three weeks in July. It would have been fun to be here at the right time, although I expect Southern France is miserable in summer.

In the afternoon we sailed north to Viviers. I wish we had had more time to explore the village, although I may have spent the time nappy because of my cold.

The evening's recital was a survey of French music from the Middle Ages to the Romantic era.

 

Johannes Regis, Burgundian school – L’homme armée (this secular tune, written in the Middle Ages, as represented by the Pope’s Palace, became the basis of Latin masses for 150 years. This performance also represented Jackie’s singing debut in France!)

 

*Jean Baptiste Lully – Menuett (with just a hint of Sur le pont d’Avignon while Aloysia was tuning)

 

Jean-Philippe Rameau – La Poule from Pièces de Clavecin (it wasn’t only the Impressionists who had colorful titles, and conveniently chicken was also on the dinner menu that evening)

 

Robert Schumann – Introduction to Faschingschwank aus Wien (in which Schumann cheekily includes a reference to the Marseilles, which was banned in Vienna at the time because of its revolutionary connotations)

 

*Gabriel Fauré – Sicilienne

 

*César Franck – 1^st and 2^nd movements from Sonata for violin and piano

 

*Louiguy (Edith Piaf) – La Vie en Rose

Tomorrow: Truffle farm and the village of Gringon