Our first Sunday in Lyon was Easter. We had been forewarned that most business are closed on Sunday in France so we had stocked up on our necessities. Some restaurants remain open and some grocery stores and boulangeries are open until about noon but most other places are closed. Even the big shopping mall in our neighborhood was shuttered on Sunday. It reminded us of U.S. business practices back in the 1950s.
We spent much of the day at Parc de la Tete D’Or, a huge urban park (one of the biggest in France), a short bus ride north of our apartment. There were lots of families there enjoying the day together. The park has a lake, a free zoo, a botanical garden, and lots of walking paths for enjoying the beautiful springtime foliage. It is a quintessential urban park, much like Central Park or Golden Gate Park in the U.S.
Also located in the park is a statue commemorating the 22nd G7 summit held in Lyon in 1996. The countries and their leaders represented were Canada, Jean Chrétien; France, Jacques Chirac; Germany, Helmut Kohl; Italy, Romano Prodi; Japan, Ryutaro Hashimoto; United Kingdom, John Major; and United States, Bill Clinton. The leaders’ signatures are engraved into a part of the statue.
France is a beautiful and tidy country in most respects, but for some reason Parc de la Tete D’Or had some of the nastiest public toilets we have ever seen. People were even refusing to enter some of the worst stalls. Go figure. But they had nice semi-outdoor urinals for the men!
