Today’s travels (4/13) have me headed from Lyon to Lille, both in France. Tomorrow, train schedules willing, I’ll finally be in Amsterdam – but to be honest, I’ve loved my time in Lyon and am sad to leave.
There are gonna be a LOT of photos in this one, since I spent most of the 11th walking around the amazing Parc de la Tête d’Or – or “Park of the head of gold”. According to Benoit (pronounced like Ben-whee), a local I met, legend has it that Louis 16 buried a head made of gold shortly after this park’s construction. Digging is, of course, forbidden. Wikipedia’s version of the legend says that Jesus’s head is supposedly be buried here. I guess legends change source to source, maybe that’s part of what makes them legends 😉 Either way, the parcel of land has been named this since before 1530!
One of the (many) attractions of the park is a section of botanical gardens. There are several very old greenhouses full of plants, and of course I explored them.
The parc was full of people jogging, lounging, exploring. Many were locals, though I could tell some were tourists like myself. It seems a popular place – the largest parc in Lyon, and apparently today was pretty sunny compared to the last few days. Everyone was out!
The greenhouses created some almost sci-fi shapes, which I enjoyed photographing.
While next to the one on the left, I also snapped a selfie in the reflection of the glass 🙂
One of the coolest greenhouses had carnivorous plants! Not a lot of Venus Flytraps, but a TON of other types. I was really into carnivorous plants for a while, so I recognized a lot of these.
Sundews like these have long slender leaves with little hairs on them. Each hair has a glob of sweet, sticky sap to attract and trap insects. Once trapped, the leaf slowly curls around the insect to digest it.
When I had sundews, they tried to flower often! The flower must rise far above the plant, so as not to eat the pollinators 😛
Pitcher plants like this rely on their deep “pitchers” to catch prey and slowly digest them. The pitchers evolved to make it difficult to escape the slippery walls once an unwitting bug falls in.
There are SO many different species, and this greenhouse had a lot!
The pitcher plants took up most of this greenhouse, and their flowers were beautiful!
Butterworts like these look harmless enough, but their wide flat leaves are like flypaper – sticky, sweet smelling, and hard to escape once landed on! They also tend to have pretty flowers.
A few more pictures from the greenhouse:
The parc also had a free zoo! I didn’t walk through the zoo, but I did see a couple of zoo animals and a number of resident parc animals.
As I continued to wander the parc, I discovered a large lake (well, I knew about it from Google Maps) in the middle of the parc. This is where I found most of the geese in the gallery above – but as I walked, I heard piano music and singing drifting across the lake (Zombie, by the Cranberries). I made my way around (eventually) and found a public piano with a crowd of people gathered around.
I took a video – but be warned, this is a digital camera from 2003 – video technology on consumer digital cameras was . . . not great. The sound is fine, but it is actually 240P quality.
Sometimes when I’m walking around a new area taking photos, I see things that I like more for the texture or color than the photo itself. Here’s a collection of these types of photos:
Besides the main attractions, the park was also filled with various little structures – benches, wells, grounds houses, and more.
There was even a mini train around part of the parc!
I did not have time to explore the whole parc – by 5PM, I was able to check in to my AirBNB (I wanted a break from 16-person rooms), and I’d been walking since 11AM!
A few more photos from the parc and my walk to the AirBNB.
After resting and unpacking, I went back out for dinner (Tacos – but totally different than in the US, more like burritos with kebab/gyro filling) and went to a parc with a view over the city for sunset.
Sorry Katerina and Felix, no mopeds in this post. This was before you sent me Moped money! Mopeds are way less common in Lyon than they were in Barcelona, but I’m sure I’ll find one to rent before the 19th. I did try the rental bikes in Lyon though, and they seem to be the fastest way for short distances (besides a car, if you can find parking, maybe).
That’s all for now! Posts for 4/12 to come 🙂 I may not make a post for today, if there isn’t much to see – after the train, I plan to be lazy in my Airbnb in Lille for the rest of the day and go to bed early.
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