Today featured three elements of Lyonnais life, including gastronomy, history, and social culture!
Continuing our trend that began yesterday, we kicked off the day with another delicacy that is not typically associated with breakfast: chocolate! We toured the famous Bernachon chocolatier shop, and got an insider’s look at the entire chocolate making process. I was surprised to learn that the shop actually shuts down for several weeks during the heat of summer because the weather interferes with both the chemistry of producing the chocolate as well as consumer interest! After we finished hearing about the story of Bernachon, the
head chef gave us some samples to try, featuring their special chocolate that contains gold leaf. Personally, I preferred the sea salt caramel to the gold, but it was all delicious!
After the invasion of France by Germany in World War II, Lyon played a fascinating part in the French resistance – a fact that was thoroughly illustrated in the Lyon Museum of the Resistance, which we visited this afternoon. During the occupation, Lyon was the heart of the resistance movement, and the Nazis responded by sending in Klaus Barbie, who was known as the ‘butcher of Lyon’ for his partiality to torture. Ultimately, his efforts were not always successful, as in the case of Lyon hero Jean Moulin,
who refused to give up information even when faced with Barbie’s methods. It was incredibly interesting to hear about history from a non-American perspective, and I learned so many new things!
Between our afternoon and evening events, a small group of us headed to the mall to help a friend of ours get some things (his checked bag was accidentally sent on its own adventure to Morocco, so the clothes he had in his carry-on were running out). Air conditioning isn’t very common here, so the mall was positively heavenly! It was also a lot of fun getting to people watch and observe people interacting, whether they were young children running around the play structures while their parents chatted quietly or young adults hanging out and browsing their favorite stores.
Once the sun was going down, we strolled over to the river to play petanque, a
traditional French game that’s similar to bocci. It uses a bunch of heavy silver balls, and the object is to be on the team that gets the most of their balls the closest to a small wooden ball, called the cochonelle. My team got out in the first round, but we enjoyed cheering for the others!
It’s getting cloudy now, and we’re all out in the courtyard at the hostel waiting for the rain that’s supposed to come in soon!
Great post.