Lyon, France - and I'm actually still here...

and getting my first batch of photos posted.  But I must also get out and see some "sites" which I haven't done yet due to, yet again, spending a lot of Wednesday wandering around looking for the "tourist information" place.  But I got these photos while wandering. :)  You'll see more of a few of these in m next post but I'm not going to try and figure out which ones to pull out.

Wikipedia has this to say:  "The Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière is a minor basilica in Lyon. It was built with private funds between 1872 and 1884 in a dominant position overlooking the city. The site it occupies was once the Roman forum of Trajan, the forum vetus, thus its name."  It is way, way high up on a hill and fortunately there are funiculars running up and down for the less powerful.  And I have read several places that it was built because whoever was ruler in that era prayed that the Prussians would not conquer Lyon and if they did not he would build a basilica to Mary.  They didn't and he did.  But I can't find that story anywhere now, of course.  I'll post more pictures from my 9/26 outing once I get finished working on this one.

 Another lovely church right on the river and I don't know its name.

 There are two rivers that run through Lyon - the Saone and the Rhone.  They run separately until they reach the "confluence" at the southern end of the city.  In between there is an island, I guess you could call it and that's where I'm staying.

The middle structure with the rounded front is the very old Cathedral of Sainte Jean.  I went there today (9/26) so will have more pictures of it also.

 Hmmm, a very crooked picture showing the juxtaposition of the two cathedrals.  And then that church I don't know the name of is right down on the left from St. Jean about a block or two.

I took this picture because of the stone arches above the lower buildings.  There is much mention of ancient Rome's part in this area and I wondered if these were leftovers.  Tomorrow I hope to get myself out to the Roman museum along with 2 Roman "arenas" or theaters that are in pretty good shape.

 Another strange building front.  What could it originally have been for?  Women's clothes? (tee hee)

 And this one is just to show how you look down a street and there are all sorts of elaborate buildings.  This whole city makes me wonder which city was built first (as a city I mean) because Lyon sure reminds me of Paris.

Just gorgeous!

And I didn't have one horrendous problem today with the place where I'm staying so that made it a nice day.

Au revoir for now!