III | Switched lanes

25/9/22-26/9/22

I never really planned on coming to Lyon. It kind of only served as a half way point between Paris and the south of France, which is where I really wanted to get to. The Away Hostel and Coffee shop I stayed at was nice, I got on pretty well with most of the people in my room too which almost made me regret booking my next destination in advance a little bit. To be fair I didn’t find that much to do in Lyon that made me really want to book another night anyway, so I didn’t mind that much in the end. I know that I’ll meet more people along the way. I guess it was just nice to talk to other people properly here after feeling pretty alone in Paris. Don’t get me wrong, I love being alone when I know that I am alone. But I don’t like feeling alone when I know that I’m not alone, if you catch my drift here. 

It’s quite interesting meeting people who come from all over the world. Finding out what they’re doing, where they’ve been and where they come from. One bloke I got on good with was a guy called Ben. He was only 21 and came from a little place called Hereford in England. He was surprised to know that I’d heard of Hereford before. He told me about cool places of where to go in Italy, such as a city called Turin which I never actually heard of before. Talking to him about Italy was cool as I’m super keen on going there soon. Another person I met was a German girl called Katerina. For memory I think she had just been to Italy too and stopped by here on her way back home. I told her and Ben about me heading to Marseille the next day and they were like “err, you might enjoy it but well, you’ll see.” That sounded very convincing, didn’t it? I hadn’t really done much research on Marseille to be honest, but my quick look at a couple of pictures of it on google maps looked nice! Judging by their reactions I should probably do a bit more research rather than skimming across a couple of google images that look pretty.


Lyon was nice, it mostly full of tall build shopping alleys and lots of restaurants and bars. I’m beginning to think this is going to be like a lot of Europe, or France at least. It was much cleaner than a lot of the areas I went to in Paris, and it was a bit quieter too. It’s also pleasant to know that not everywhere in France smells like wees too. There were these twin rivers that were nice to walk a long, and there were plenty of water fountains and statues. I am so not used to the road laws here in Europe by the way. Like the old switcheroo with driving lanes, you really have to have your wits about you as you’re walking around if you aren’t used to them. At one point I was so close to getting smoked by this woman on a bicycle as I just put my foot off of the pathway and on to the road. Just because I was looking the way I would normally have if I were anywhere else in the world I’ve ever been to. She did bloody well to dodge me, kudos to her. I could tell that she was super fucked off with me despite my multiple attempts to apologise to her. Fair enough though! Bloody idiot tourist, she must have thought about me. 


I don’t really have anything bad to say about Lyon to be honest, I try to have a list of positives and negatives for each place I go to but I actually don’t have anything bad to say, which is good. But in saying that, I don’t think there’s really anything special about Lyon either. I wouldn’t have minded staying another night - mainly to get to know the people I roomed with more as they were staying longer. But like I said earlier though, I felt like there wasn’t actually much to look at in Lyon beyond the amount of shops and restaurants it has. 


I probably learned to not jump the gun with booking the next destination as soon as I just got to my current one. As soon as I arrived to Lyon I booked my next bus and accommodation to Marseille for the following day, without even having a proper look around Lyon first. I think if I actually loved Lyon I may have regretted doing that, something to think about more in the future. Like Paris, it’d be a cool place to come back one day with mates and get on the beers to be honest. It’s definitely the kind of city made for that kind of thing. 


Next up Marseille! I am curious to see what I think…

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