Day Two of our motorcycle road trip started with a stretch and my eyes slowly fluttering open. Not because this is a romantic novel, but because if S saw that I was awake he’d make me get up.
A quick glance at the clock confirmed my suspicions, that it was “too-early-o’clock” and so I snapped my eyes shut before trying to style out my stretch in the hope that S didn’t clock on to the fact that I had awoken from my slumber.
“Erm, Amy… I know you’re awake”.
Damn it. My cover was blown.
I tried to opt for silence in the hopes that S would mistake ignorance for actually being asleep, but it turns out I have the poker face of a hyperactive five year old who has just found the cake stash and is on the world’s biggest sugar high… Giggly. And so out of the bed, I had to get.
The good news is that being awake meant breakfast.
The bad news is that breakfast wasn’t included in our stay and so three Nutella pancakes, two ham and cheese rolls, a croissant and two freshly squeezed orange juices later, I found myself well and truly getting my money’s worth. I also had to pretty much roll out of the restaurant because damn girl dat carb bloat is real. Also skipping dinner in favour of sleep is never a good idea because you wake up a kazillion times hungrier than usual and eating a days worth of calories in one meal is not a good idea when you’re about to spend four hours sitting on yo’ ass on the back of a bike trying not to fall asleep. Again.
Eventually I stopped eating and sat my ass back onto the bike, but not before I had a teeny tiny hissy fit over the fact that my glove had turned itself inside out and I couldn’t get the lining back in… Luckily S found a pencil and soon we were off with my fingers safely nestled in the world’s warmest and most annoying (but comfortable) gloves, watching as the fields of green we passed by slowly began merging into even more fields of green. Seriously. I can’t even begin to tell you how many fields of green there are along that first stretch of toll road.
About two hours in I developed an itch on my forehead which, yes, seems like a random thing to include in a blog post but it’s relevant because I had to itch it with my giant glove finger (because like HELL was I taking that thing off after the struggle of putting it on that morning) and it pulled a piece of my hair loose from my ponytail. Not a big deal right?
That’s what I thought… But it turns out we were both wrong because that little section of loose hair was whipping my mother-clucking face at 80mph and that shit hurt. I beeped S over the intercom and advised him that I needed to make an emergency stop before my hair whipped my eyeball and blinded me but I’m pretty sure he didn’t quite understand the urgency because he drove past three stops before pulling into a little forest lined carpark to relieve me of my hair face-flogging.
I managed to get my first glove off without it turning inside out and rather than test my luck, I decided to leave the second one on. As I took off my helmet I noticed that S had disappeared towards a group of people in the trees. I followed because I’m nosey, but also he might have needed me to save him (because we all know there’s nothing scarier than a 5ft4 woman wearing a smile and one glove) but it turns out that this group of people just wanted a chat. They were a group of heavily French clay pigeon shooters from Lyon who had been touring France for a tournament and they wanted to feed us sausage.
No that’s not a euphemism.
They wanted to share actual sausage with us. I tried to resist because I’d already risked my life on day one by accepting a jelly bean from a stranger and I’m pretty sure Mumma Toothbrush would have been real mad if I kept ignoring her stranger-danger advice. But when I put my hand up to politely decline one of the gentlemen misunderstood my “No” for a “I can’t because I have a glove on and my other hand is full” and proceeded to pull my glove off … Turning it inside out in the process.
*face palm*
I hid my glove (and rage) in my pocket and tried to forget about how long it had taken me S to reinsert the lining that morning. It turns out my temper was short lived because despite the banquet I ate that morning, I now had a free hand for sausage, and that made me happy. However, the polite acceptance of sausage turned into the polite acceptance of baguette, sweet wine and the nicest goat’s cheese I have ever eaten and before long S and I were sat with 7 men which we had never met before, enjoying a sun-soaked picnic covered by the shade of a tree and minimal conversation. Eventually we had to tear ourselves away because apparently we had somewhere to be and that somewhere was not drunk in a car park with random gentlemen.
It was the most surreal experience and three hours later when we arrived in Lyon I was still smiling. Not just because of the super hospitable picnic, but because Lyon is really rather beautiful.
As was our hotel…
As we pulled into the expansive carpark and caught a glimpse of where we were staying I felt incredibly out of place in my head to toe motorbike gear, as the building was gorgeous, and me?
Well I was a sweaty mess.
But the hotel staff were incredibly friendly, eager to hear about our trip and they had a trolley which made carrying our helmets and bags that much easier!
In a bid to cool down S popped out for a swim
Whereas I jumped in the shower and changed from shit-to chic.
Or at least that’s what I told myself.
But when I tried to do that fashion blogger thing, the camera still screamed “AWKWARD”.
Whereas S?
The kid’s a natural.
So I think I’ll just stick to the behind-lens-with-the-occasional-picture-of-my-face stuff for now.
The hotel we stayed in was called the Fourviere Hotel and is nestled at the top of Lyon. The hotel was once a convent and the magnificent reception area you saw above, was once the chapel. Religion may cause as much division as it does unity, but one thing’s for sure – some incredibly beautiful buildings have been constructed in it’s honour.
After roaming around the grounds we made our way down to the city centre, stopping at the Ancient Theatre of Fourvière which was built for 10,000 people in 15BC.
Before wandering around the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière where my jaw quite literally hit the floor
Those ^^ just up there, they were the only photos I took. It was one of those places which was just too pretty to not experience in the moment and so my camera became an after thought.
After admiring the view across the city below, we wandered over to the cable car down to the city to sniff out dinner buuuuut this post is already 1300 words long… So more on that next time!
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