France Day 5: Old Brasserie and the Lyon Aquarium
[Written 24 AUGUST 2014. It’s a good memory exercise!]
Although the day before was ‘active’, this Monday was also an ‘active’ day (two ‘active’ days in a row are generally a no-no).
I can only blame myself because I’d told Anna we’d visit the Lyon aquarium on some previous day, and then backtracking when the timing didn’t work out, promising we’d do it, say, on Monday.
First though we had to get lunch, and (the royal) we decided to try the famous Brasserie Georges, which is the oldest brasserie in the city, and one of the largest in Europe (according to wikipedia). (23 images total)
Can’t forget the biggest news of the day, which was Bjarki losing his first upper front tooth (both the lower ones are gone)!
After some further adventures in parking (well, the parking went ok, getting from the parking garage to where we wanted was a small adventure), we ended up at the Brasserie Georges.
It is in fact very big!
Yes, they brew their own beer, and apparently have from the start, because the water in Lyon was considered very good. And yes, we can confirm that the tap water in Lyon is probably the best tap water we’ve had outside of Iceland!
The place has been open since 1836!
We had to wait a while for the food, so I passed the time by taking pictures.
Cheerful people!
Bjarki with his daddy-made mohawk.
I was there too!
The kids menu included this water sweetened with a flavoring of your choice. We chose strawberry.
The food arrived and it was good! (Emma got the ham and fries, Anna some sausage and mashed potatoes.)
Emma fell asleep in the car on the way to the aquarium, so I opted to stay in the car with her while Finnur and the big kids went inside.
They saw a bunch of fishies of various shapes and sizes, but Finnur was a bit underwhelmed, especially after being spoiled by the super-awesome Monterey Bay aquarium in California.
Wee turtles!
Seahorses are always cool!
They returned just as Emma was waking up, and my feet were very happy for the break. This is the weird looking Musée des Confluences, which is apparently a science centre and anthropology museum currently under construction.
On the way back home the car GPS warned us of a traffic jam and offered a detour which we took. The detour took us up along the river Saône, which combines with the river Rhône by the aquarium. There were lots of slightly crazy modern buildings along the waterfront. Most of them are so new still that they aren’t on Google maps! (Click here for a cool webpage of some people sailing down the river.)
Here be two cubes.
The kids demanded a picture of this one!
Some architects have all the fun! On the left side of the orange building was a building under construction. It’ll be neat to see what emerges from the cocoon!
Ah, the probably-super-expensive boxy buildings. I see they live here too!
Looking straight ahead, the view was more traditional. Oh, and see the line of cars? We did have to suffer through some traffic after all.
We got home without too much trouble, and found a large spider waiting for us. Finnur gently tossed it outside.