Lyon and Pont du Gard

Garrett and I just laughed our heads off cause we saw the funniest thing right in front of us. I don't know if you've ever seen the Pink Panther but there's a part where Steve Martin (Jaques Cruso) tries to parallel park his car. This was that exact scene in real life. Some dude was trying to park on a hill and bashed the cars surrounding him at least 3 times. He didn't just hit them he practically pushed the car behind him down the hill. It was so hilarious, and he just kept doing it over and over again! Even the car on the opposite side of the road got hit. I can't get over how funny that was.

Lyon has been a good little stop. We didn't get a whole long time to wander back streets, but we did go to Lyons equivalent of Central Park and walked around a glorious lake that I neglected to take pictures of unfortunately. It even had a free zoo with a safari and everything. It was really nice. I would take my kids there every day if I lived there. You could rent little 2 seater side by side bikes and tandems, and little paddle and row boats for the lake for really cheap too. We hiked through the city and came across a delightful farmers market where I bought some fresh apricots for breakfast and Garrett grabbed some goodies from a patisserie. I wish Salt Lake had fresh produce like that. We did a little rush through old Lyon and went through the cathedral on the hill, Notre Dame en Fouvier. There was a pretty city overlook and I think the thing I'll remember best about Lyon will be the red roofs.

We drove down to Pont du Gard and the weather was just beautiful. I was kicking myself the whole time that I didn't put on my swimsuit to swim around under the Pont. Instead we walked across and waded in the water and splashed around. The river was warm and delightful. On the way out we tried a little hike but turned around cause it seemed to be longer than we thought, but it did give us a good view from the top of the highest tier of Pont du Gard. What an amazing feat of history.

The way out took us through Avignon so we decided to take a spin through the medieval walls of the city to get a feel for it. The palace of the popes was pretty neat, and the city walls are perfectly preserved. My impression was that it was a little over crowded and touristy, so I don't think we missed out too much by not stopping. It's like basically a less personal Chatres. I like Chartres better.

Garrett and I were both over Marseille really fast. It's a bit of a letdown after the superb places we've been. Even the main drag is pretty sketchy. Once we got to the old port with the sailboats it was pretty, but everywhere else isn't that great. I can't say I wasn't warned by Rick Steve's though. He said it would be seedy. Our little run in at the Carrefour didn't help my opinion of Marseille at all either. We were checking out with our stuff when I heard a loud sound of something dropping at the front of the store. There was the sound of scuffling, and girls started screaming. A large crowd of scary looking Arabs surrounded the front door and I thought it was all over for me. I instantly dove behind the cash register and hid close to the floor assuming the sound was a gunshot, and a crazed looking man ran right by me. One of the cash register guys came over and told me to "stay there" in English. He left and I saw him chase down the crazy guy while the extremely brave girl at my register yelled at a man at the front door. I peeked and saw his face was covered in blood, and there was blood on the floor around him. It was horrifying. I thought it was a gang shooting. I still don't even know for sure what happened but Garrett said it was just a fight between two guys and the crowd was just a bunch of curious onlookers. When we got out we booked all the way home. Garrett even seemed scared. He was squeezing my hand so tight I could feel his pulse in the back of his palm. We got into our hotel and all the lights in the building were off and the stairs were lit by tiny green lights that made it look like a sewer or something. Seriously we were running through a horror movie. Haha it's so funny now looking back but I don't think I was that amused at the time. At least dinner on the dock was pleasant. We watched the sunset over the ocean and the restaurant was good. I'm glad tomorrow's excursions are out on the beaches and not in this scary city.