Block #8 - Lyon

The goal of visiting Lyon was to get to the Textile and Decorative Arts Museums (more the former than the latter, really), and due to some issues with train reservations, we only had barely enough time to get to see them. I would have liked to spend more time in Lyon, because I really liked the feel of the town, even just after we stepped off of the train. Everything was a little smaller, a little slower, a little simpler to figure out than it was in Paris. The oldest part of the city is situated on a peninsula between two rivers, and is terribly pretty. Of course, it's possible that the other parts of the city are equally as pretty, but we didn't get a chance to see them, so I couldn't say. The requisite outdoor pretty shot of the town:



The Museums were amazing, though I'd say hands down my favorite of the two was the Textile Museum. They had a really cool opening exhibit about what differentiates different fabrics, i.e. how a satin is woven vs. how a taffeta is woven, along with scale models of the looms that would have been used to make the fabrics. The one downside to the experience was that all of the signage was in French, so I really only had the pictures to rely on. That said, just looking at the workmanship in the pieces they had on display was entrancing enough. For example:



I'd say that this picture covers maybe one fifth of the total surface of the tapestry I was looking at (and I apologize for the glare that's in most of these pictures; most of these pieces were behind glass). The tapestry was probably about two feet wide and maybe six feet tall, completely covered in this detailed silk embroidery. It was amazing. If that doesn't impress you, how about this piece. Take a guess at what it was made out of:



Any thoughts? No? Paper. The entire thing was cut out of paper. I can't even imagine the patience that went into that sort of thing, let alone the pair of scissors that whomever made it must have had.

There was also a special exhibit going on at the museum featuring clergy robes and various other religious textile artifacts, which was also pretty incredible, and a lot more educational because they had cards with the English translations of all of the signs in the exhibit. One of my favorite pieces in the exhibit:



Finally just a couple pictures of things I found interesting. The floor in the decorative arts museum



and a random balcony we saw when walking around



Unfortunately our time in Lyon was too short, so there's not really much more to talk about in this blog. Oh! Except to say that we at in the coolest little restaurant where they pretty much seated us in the kitchen. There's no telling why the restaurant was set up the way it was, probably because they started out with a smaller space and expanded over the years, but we walked into the dining room and they took us through the kitchen to a secondary dining room, where they seated us at a table that was about 6 feet away from a range and oven that were kind of set back into the wall. It occurred to me that they probably seated us in what they considered the worst seats in the house, but it was kind of cool watching the couple people that were using the appliances coming and going.

Thus, after too little time in Lyon, off we head again to Nice!