So work brought me to Paris & Berlin. . .: Lyon - the end of our Euro Cup adventure

In good news, the weather started to turn for the better in Lyon so we were finally getting a small taste of summer, it was after all July 5th!!

My planning skills started to fall apart after all the other tours so I did not manage to get a city tour in Lyon so we opted for the hop on/hop off bus. Given our location on the route we made our first stop the Gallo-Romain de Lyon. Similar to what we had seen the day before, this old Roman style amphitheater is still being used for concerts today.

View from the top

On foot we made our way to La Basilique Notre Dame deFourvière.

The hill of Fourvière – the praying hill – is the centre of the spiritual and cultural life in Lyon. It is in Fourvière that the early Christians expressed their faith. The basilica was built between 1872 and 1884 and is dedicated to the Virgin Mary. There are also a number of alters inside the back part of the church paying tribute to Christians in other nations.

This site also provided amazing views of the city.

From there it was back on the bus to get to the Hotel de Ville which was near one of the closed restaurants we were suggested. This time, however, we stumbled across something great! My dad even taught some Germans how to open beer bottles with a knife - I think they were pretty impressed.

City Hall

Building across the street :P

Lunch!

Then we were off again passing by some of the other sites including painted walls, also known as murals of Lyon that highlight life, literature and history in Lyon.

We also took a little stroll through the old town.

Astrological clock

We ended this day in Lyon with our last Euro Cup game - a semi-final - Wales vs Portugal. I have to say that the transit to and from the game was best in Lyon. They actually had planned for massive amounts of people going to and from the stadium which made the whole process far more enjoyable than all the previous games.

Of course we arrived at the game with plenty of time to consume one last gourmet meal and take in the atmosphere. Since this was our second time watching Wales, we decided that t-shirts were in order. Sadly they lost that night . . .

Because this was a semi-final game, I paid the most of their tickets and they were by far our worst seats and Portugal won. As you may have noted, I am not a fan of Portugal (well the football team, the country, food, wine and people are lovely!).