France Day 7: Cinema and Miniature Museum and Dinner in Old Lyon

Emma playing!

Emma peeking into the playpen, fresh from her nap.

Perhaps the strangest architectural feature of this house was the staircase leading from the living room to the two upstairs bedrooms. Anna’s room was on the left, and ours on the right, and while there was a hole in the support beam which divided the staircase, there was not easy access between the two rooms up at the top.

The cat spotted, after which it promptly fled outside.

Heading out!

There are a few main avenues in Lyon, and they’re sort of marked by tall trees.

There were lots of pedestrians around.

Emma getting an energy boost.

It was a somewhat tight fit in the back seat, but it worked out all right.

Bjarki with his fancy hair!

Finnur driving as always, because I accidentally left my driver’s licence in Iceland.

Pretty colors!

The church upon the hill.

Fairly typical houses as you get close to the rivers.

Crossing yet another bridge, moving west.

Old Lyon sits pretty much directly beneath the church on the hill.

We arrived at the museum pretty late, it was a little over an hour until closing time. But we made it through with some minutes to spare.

The museum is on four floors, and in the basement they have full scale sets from the movie Perfume: The story of a murderer (Ilmurinn?). The basement was very dungeon-y, which was great because Finnur had just played a role-playing-game with Anna and Bjarki the day before, where they were in a dungeon, and Bjarki didn’t really know what that was.

Emma and Finnur by a Stargate staff. (I had my 50 mm lens on which is great for dark spaces, but not so great for wide shots.)

Ms. Anna.

Inside rooms marked ‘not for children’ they had stuff like this.

Anna contemplating props.

Bjarki was a little freaked out. He crossed his arms, and refused to go any closer to that box of strange heads.

Actual wand of Harry Potter, used in the films.

Props are awesome!

You can infer the size of this model spacecraft from the signage down on the left. It was big!

Inside another room marked ‘not for children’ they had this full size Alien monster, which would have been all fine and innocent and dandy if they hadn’t coupled it with a spooky soundtrack (with alien sounds) and spooky lights that changed. The kids were lured in there by the sounds, and Bjarki was pretty freaked out until he’d watched a bit of the ‘making of the alien’ video that was rolling along in the room, at which point he calmed down a bit.

Hello old friend!

Looking down from one of the balconies.

Up on the top floor were a bunch of miniatures. They had both a bunch of isolated tiny pieces, as well as a slew of whole rooms, which looked very real while still being tiny.  Finnur and Anna took almost all the photos of the miniatures you see below.

Tiny stuff!

More tiny stuff!

See the tiny chocolate bears?

One of the complete rooms.

Fun shadow play.

Not quite a ship in a bottle, but close.

Amazing details!

Swanky living space.

Print shop?

Fancy dining hall.

Much less fancy dining hall.

Dinosaur exhibit. Remember, these are quite small in real life!  Check out the gallery on this page for a photo of this room with a person inside it.

Uncomfortable looking sofas surrounded by books.

Grocery store.

Workshop.

Swanky bedroom.

Studio.

Messy rooms!

Looks like a butcher shop?  Or just a dirty kitchen?

Grim and dark.

Tiny kitchen.

City-section.

After we left the museum, we spent a few minutes walking on cobble stone streets, looking for a good place to eat.

We lucked out and found a restaurant  (Les Pampres Rouges) that had absolutely delicious food. Best pasta ever!

They didn’t have any ice cream, so we skipped dessert. Luckily we stumbled onto an ice cream shop! Anna got a fancy rose!

Bjarki pretty happy with life.

Finnur keeping my ice cream while I take pictures.  Finnur commented that the ice cream shop (well, gelato shop if you want to be picky) had everything going for it, nice shop, great presentation, ok price, except the ice cream didn’t taste quite as good as one expected!  I agreed.

That red building houses the museum we just went to. Also, the restaurant next to it is apparently terrible. We didn’t try it.

The walk back to the car took us past yet another church, but we didn’t go inside.

Back by the river Saône.

Fun bridge!

Contemplating the river.

The backside of that church we passed, made pretty by google, when in reality it looks like …

… this!

Bjarki about to start climbing the fence surrounding the car park. Once we made it to the car, we drove straight home.