Table of Contents for this Episode
Categories: Learn French, Lyon Area
[00:00:00]
Introduction
Annie: This is Join Us in France, episode 611, six cent onze.
Bonjour, I’m Annie Sargent, and Join Us in France is the podcast where we take a conversational journey through the beauty, culture, and flavors of France.
Today on the podcast: Lyon Travel Guide, Secret Passageways and Food Specialties
Annie: Today, I bring you a conversation with Mikayla Sibner of Pardon My Learning, an American-born French teacher who has lived in Lyon for years.
We cover her recent guided tour of Lyon, the silk weavers’ history, secret traboule murals, the Fourvière Basilica, Lyon specialties like quenelle and praline, oh, the praline, oh my goodness. And tips for getting around the city.
Support the Podcast
Annie: Before we [00:01:00] start, this show runs on listener support.
If you want to work with me directly, I do itinerary consults, I’ve written eight tours of Paris on the VoiceMap app, and I do day trips around the southwest of France in my electric car. You can see all these goodies at joinusinfrance.com/boutique. And if you shop on Amazon anyway, starting at joinusinfrance.com/amazon costs you nothing and helps the show.
Magazine segment
Annie: There will not be a Magazine part of the podcast today again, because this recording ran long, and also because I had to record this intro early on account of, you know, summer vacations. I promise, back to normal next week.
But I do want to send my thanks to my patrons, without whom this show would not happen week after week after week. And I must point out that even though sometimes I don’t record a magazine, I’ve never done a rerun. There’s a new episode every Sunday, so I don’t think I’m doing [00:02:00] too badly.
To join this wonderful community of Francophiles, go to patreon.com/joinus. And to support Elyse, go to patreon.com/elysart.
And don’t forget to check out my new channel, Join Us in France Video on YouTube. You get to see my mug and sometimes I even speak French.
You should check it out. Totally separate from this audio podcast, by the way, so you need to be subscribed to both.
Meet Michaela Sibner
Annie: Bonjour, Mikayla Sibner, and welcome to Join Us in France.
Mikayla: Merci. Bonjour.
Annie: So I should say that you have a company. We’ll say the name of the company right away before I forget. It’s called Pardon My Learning.
Mikayla: Yes.
Annie: And you [00:03:00] teach French. And I found out that several listeners and several patrons of mine-
Mikayla: Mm-hmm
Annie: … are also learning French with you.
Mikayla: Yes. Very lucky to have many listeners who are allowing me to guide them in their French learning journey, and it’s a lot of fun.
Annie: That’s great.
Learning French Beyond AI
Annie: I think you have one massive advantage as a French teacher because you are American born from California, right?
Mikayla: From California, from Sacramento originally.
Annie: Right. But you’ve been living in France a long, long time, and your French is impeccable. We spoke French together.
Mikayla: Yes, we did.
Annie: And then you also had to learn it the hard way, which-
Mikayla: I did.
Annie: Which I didn’t have to. So I’m sure you can explain French a lot better than I can.
Mikayla: It’s definitely an advantage as a non-native speaker, especially for beginning students, because I lived the same experience. I had to try to understand the rules. I had to learn methods for [00:04:00] why do we put this here, and why is an adjective before, but usually it’s after, or why do we have to make agreement? And so I definitely have that advantage with beginning students. But what’s really nice is I have my colleague, Sarah, we’re a duo, who’s a native French speaker. So we have both of this perspective. We have the native, you know, intuitive, like this is how we say something, or this very random expression she’ll know.
Annie: Yeah.
Mikayla: But I can explain that grammar. I can explain the inner workings of the language.
Annie: Yeah. Why?
Mikayla: It’s a really good complementary teaching style. Yes, exactly. Well, why? Yes.
Annie: Why? And, you know, I always encourage people, whether they are planning to move to France or not, I encourage people to learn as much French as they can.
Mikayla: Of course.
Annie: So to me it’s important to have people on who do teach French and help others because, you know, you think you’re going to learn a lot with AI, but not really. [00:05:00] You have to speak. You have to speak to a person.
Mikayla: You have to speak, and you need the feedback.
Annie: Yeah.
Mikayla: You need somebody to tell you, “Well, no, that’s not actually 100% the way you could say it. We understand, but here’s a better way.” Or to give that cultural background why you might say something.
There’s a lot more than just memorizing text or memorizing conjugations. Learning any language is being able to understand a culture.
Annie: Mm-hmm.
Mikayla: And AI can’t necessarily teach you culture.
Annie: No, it’s not going to.
Mikayla: Well, at least I hope not.
Annie: And the thing is, it will tell you that it can. That’s the problem with AI, is that it doesn’t ever admit to not knowing. Try this. Just invent a village name, something that sounds possible, a plausible village name.
Mikayla: Yeah. Saint-Bidule-de-Machin.
Annie: And ask AI to tell you about it.
Mikayla: Yeah. Oh, and they [00:06:00] will.
Annie: And it will write you a beautiful story.
Mikayla: It will, yes.
Annie: There you go. So, just warning for people. It’s like, hmm, okay.
Mikayla: Yeah. I mean, of course there are many great tools out there, but that’s what it is, a tool.
Annie: Yeah.
Mikayla: And you need many different ways of learning to have a well-rounded approach. And so that’s why I’m not fully against things like Duolingo or, you know,having an AI program if you want to practice. It is a tool amongst many of them. It’s just you can’t rely uniquely on that.
Annie: Yeah. An excellent point.
First Impressions of Lyon
Annie: And the other thing is that we met in person because we had, you were very kind to meet me when I was in Lyon.
Mikayla: Yeah, about a week ago.
Annie: About a week ago. It wasn’t that long ago. We met and you showed me around your city.
Mikayla: Yeah.
Annie: And I have to say, Lyon is a fabulous place.
Mikayla: It’s beautiful.
Annie: Yes. So we are going to talk about [00:07:00] Lyon as well today because, I didn’t know it very well. I had, like I mentioned to you, I had spent a couple of days there, maybe three days, but it was with a group of blind people and their guide dogs, and my purpose was mostly to keep an eye on the people and their dogs. I’m always afraid they’re going to jump under a bus or something, you know. I mean, they don’t, thankfully, but I worry about these things.
And you know, I admire the work that guide dogs do, but they are still a dog. Like, it’s a dog. You can’t be 100%… Well, anyway. Anyway, this visit this last week, which I was there for six days, six full days was wonderful, and I was very impressed with Lyon because it’s about the same size as Toulouse, my hometown.
Apparently we’re inching higher than Lyon as far as population is [00:08:00] concerned.
Mikayla: Yes.
Airport and Transit Tips
Annie: But I thought Lyon offers, first of all, much better public transportation than Toulouse. We are behind in that regard. For instance, we don’t have a tram or anything to get to the airport.
Mikayla: That’s a shame, yeah.
Annie: We used to. They built it, it ran for a year and a half, and then my guess is that taxi drivers-
Mikayla: Complained?
Annie: Yeah. Put up a stink. And miraculously that tram has been busted ever since.
Mikayla: That’s a shame.
Annie: Yeah, yeah.
Mikayla: It’s a shame. I will say though, in Lyon it’s very expensive using the Rhône Express.
Annie: Yeah. Well, it’s what, €16?
Mikayla: Yes, one way.
Annie: One way.
Mikayla: One way. So the aller-retour, the round trip is about 32. You can buy it a little bit cheaper in advance. I believe 60 days in advance it’s at a lower rate. However, there is now a bus that you can also take.
Annie: [00:09:00] Yeah. Well, but my husband took a taxi because he was arriving late. He met me for the weekend, and he arrived late, and he took a taxi. It was €80 one way.
Mikayla: Wow.
Annie: So yeah. So Rhône Express is a good deal because the airport in Lyon is kind of far away from the city.
Mikayla: It is quite a ways away, about 30 minutes or so, depending on traffic.
Annie: Yeah.
Mikayla: Interesting though, 80 euro, wow.
Annie: 80 euros.
Mikayla: Either they upped their prices, because usually when I take like an Uber or something like that, it’s about 50 euro.
Annie: Right. So we took an Uber to go back to the airport after the week was over, and that was, I think, €35.
Mikayla: Oh, interesting.
Annie: It was on a Sunday morning.
Mikayla: Could also be for that.
Annie: Perhaps the taxi was expensive because it was late. Like he landed after 11:00 PM.
Mikayla: That’s probably the thing.
Annie: Yeah.
Mikayla: Right.
Annie: That makes sense.
Mikayla: Right.
Annie: So, anyway, I thought the public transportation in Lyon was very [00:10:00] good, and Lyon, the other thing that Lyon has that’s better than Toulouse is that there are so many things to do in Lyon, in the city proper, without ever going outside.
Mikayla: No, you could stay in a whole neighborhood and not run out of things to do.
Annie: Right. There are so many things. Like there, you have a lot of world-class museums.
Lyon Neighborhoods Explained
Annie: Well, first of all, explain the different areas of Lyon, like the different neighborhoods and things like that.
Mikayla: Of course. So Lyon is split up into three different parts mainly, and it’s, this is due to the two rivers that run through Lyon. You have the Rhône and you have La Saône, and they meet in a confluent at the very bottom of Lyon.
And so this has broken up Lyon into the west side, which is Vieux Lyon. This is Old Lyon. This is where Lyon truly started. Then you have what’s called the Presqu’île, the almost island. This is where you have the L’Hôtel de Ville, the city hall. You have many [00:11:00] Haussmannian buildings, many Paris-style buildings. And then on the right side of the rivers you have Part-Dieu, which is the new modern business center of Lyon.
Annie: Right.
Mikayla: And so Lyon really started from the Colline de Fourvière on the very left, in the west, and it extended out right to the east.
Annie: Right.
Fourvière Basilica and Romans
Annie: And on the Colline de Fourvière, there are two main attractions.
Mikayla: Yes.
Annie: They are the basilica which reminded me quite a lot of the Sacré-Cœur in Paris.
Because it’s that sort of Byzantine style. It is, when you enter, it is covered in mosaics and gold.
Mikayla: Yeah, gold mosaics. It’s very opulent.
Annie: Yes, it’s very, very opulent. It’s a beautiful basilica.
Mikayla: Gorgeous.
Annie: There’s plenty of history to it. It’s from about the same time as the Sacré-Cœur.
The plans started middle 1800s [00:12:00] and then they’ve completed the construction a little later. And the other main attraction, in the Fourvière area is the Lugdunum. That’s the antiquities part of Lyon. So you have this big, very large theater, Roman theater that is completely open, so you don’t have to pay a penny to go into that.
But there’s also the museum per se, and I have to say, I had a hard time finding the door to get in. I kept looking up at the amphitheater and the door it’s in the rock.
Mikayla: It’s off to the side.
Annie: Yeah. It’s like in the rock.
Mikayla: It’s at the very top and off to the… when you’re looking at the amphitheater, it’s off to the left.
Annie: It’s because they want you to start at the top and work your way down, and you end in the amphitheater.
Right, and I did it the opposite way. I started at the bottom, and I had just walked up, all the way up to see it, right?
Mikayla: Oh, man.
Annie: And then I walked back down looking for the door, and I couldn’t find [00:13:00] it, and I almost gave up, and then I saw a big old, there was a big old sign that said, “Entrée,” you know? Like, I just hadn’t… there’s so much to look at, you don’t see everything.
Mikayla: I mean, there really is. And it’s incredible, and you can also go to concerts in this amphitheater every summer.
Annie: And so eventually I entered from the bottom. The guy, the guard told me, “Oh, you need to enter from the top. Go back to the top.” And I was like, “I just did this. I don’t want to do this again.” And he’s like, “Oh, all right,” and he let me in from the bottom. So my white hair helps.
Mikayla: And a pouty face, right?
Annie: And a pouty face. Yeah, I was like, “Uh, what? I just did this.”
Mikayla: Oh.
Annie: “Don’t make me.” Anyway.
Mikayla: But it’s a beautiful museum, and you learn a lot about the beginnings of Lyon, which was called Lugdunum in Roman times.
Annie: Yeah. I mean, I wouldn’t put this [00:14:00] museum on the top of things to do in Lyon, but I would say if you have several days, it’s really, really worth it, or if you have a strong interest in Roman history because Lyon was a major, major center of Roman life.
Mikayla: It was the capital of the Trois Gaules.
Annie: Yes.
Mikayla: It was the capital of the Three Gauls, and so that’s why we ended up with so many amphitheaters, and that’s why it was so built up, and very important for the Roman Empire.
Annie: Right. So that’s the Fourvière area, and it is not flat. A lot in Lyon is not flat.
Mikayla: No, lots of hills.
Annie: So Fourvière is on top of a hill, so is this museum and the amphitheater. But then you have a train, like, what do you call it?
Mikayla: Yeah, a funiculaire.
Annie: A funicular. Yeah, funiculaire.
Mikayla: In English, French, it’s the same thing, you know?
Annie: Yeah, yeah, a funicular. Yeah, that takes you up and down, and that’s part of your pass for the week.
Mikayla: Mm-hmm.
City Pass and Ticket Hacks
Annie: I have to [00:15:00] say, I bought the Lyon City Pass for four days, and it was excellent. It was an excellent value because it, it included all transportation.
Mikayla: Mm-hmm.
Annie: And that’s, I think that’s really important. When you don’t know a city, get the passes that don’t count the trips that you’re going to need because you make mistakes.
Like, at one point, I misunderstood where I was, you know, what my connection was, and so I exited the metro, and I didn’t need to exit the metro. But that meant I had to get another ticket, right? But since I had the pass with unlimited, it didn’t matter. So I really recommend when you visit France, just get the unlimited pass for a day or two days or three days or whatever you need.
Mikayla: It makes it easy.
Annie: Right, it makes it easy. You don’t worry about messing up, you just, you can just do it in the other direction if you… Yeah.
Mikayla: You just go.
Annie: Yeah, you just go.
Mikayla: You can be [00:16:00] like a local.
Annie: Right, right, and in Paris, I often just get the Navigo Easy with a certain number of tickets, but that’s because I know Paris.
Mikayla: Exactly. When you’re familiar with it, it’s much easier to work the system. But if you don’t know, make it easy for yourself. Just buy the pass. It’s worth it.
Annie: Yeah.
Mikayla: It’s not terribly expensive.
Annie: I think in Lyon because I only had four days, so I had to buy, a couple of extra days of pass, and they were… The first time I bought it, it’s a little green card. It was 7.10, I think.
Mikayla: Mm-hmm.
Annie: And then the next day, I just had to buy 6.30 or something for the pass. Because once you have the card, you don’t have to buy the card again.
Mikayla: Right. You just fill it up.
Annie: Right, right.
Mikayla: And what’s interesting in Lyon is it’s a little different from Paris, where your ticket for the metro, it works a little differently. It’s good for an hour.
Annie: Mm.
Mikayla: So it’s not a single use. It’s as many transfers as you need within an hour.
Annie: Right, and they let you pay with your credit card.
Mikayla: They [00:17:00] do.
Annie: I tried that, and it worked. I have no idea how, if there had been a controller, how would I have been able to prove that I had paid?
Mikayla: They just, they do it the same way as they do with a card. They have a reader. They stick it up against it, and it says whether the chip was used or not.
Annie: Ah, brilliant.
Mikayla: There you go. So you won’t have to worry.
Annie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mikayla: I’ve seen it happen millions of times, where people use their credit cards, and they’re perfectly fine. And you can use it several times, I think up to five times. So, like, if you have multiple people in your family you just have to put a few seconds in between each time.
Annie: Okay. Excellent, excellent local intel. So that was Fourvière, and I think you know, you should go up to Fourvière.
Mikayla: Yes, you have to.
Annie: Yeah, the view is beautiful from up there.
Mikayla: It’s gorgeous.
Annie: There’s also some good restaurants up there.
Just a very pleasant area.
Mikayla: Yeah, it’s a wonderful area, and you get a really good look at the [00:18:00] rest of Lyon.
And I think something I explained to you is you can kind of see the different sections depending on the color of the roofs.
Annie: Oh, that’s right. Tell us this. Tell us this.
Mikayla: Yes. So because Lyon started in Vieux Lyon and at the top of the hill, Fourvière, you have the old section. That’s the closest. I believe it’s kind of like a brownish color roof. In the middle, you have the Haussmannien. Those are more red tile. And then the very end, you have the modern, and you can tell the modern from the rest. So you really get aperspective of time as you look across Lyon. It’s really quite beautiful.
Annie: Mm-hmm.
Mikayla: And on a clear day, you can see the Les Alpes, if you’re lucky.
Annie: Yeah, yeah. I didn’t, but if you’re in the right tippy-top, you might see it.
Mikayla: Yes, yes. And it has to be clear. And what the local legend is, if you can see the Les Alpes, it’s going to rain the next day.
Annie: Ah.
Mikayla: So you can do your weather forecasting that way.
Annie: Yeah, we lucked out, I got [00:19:00] rained on maybe for a few minutes. It was not a big deal at all. So for a week late March, the weather was quite fine, but I have to say, it got windy, and the wind was very cold.
Mikayla: Yes.
Annie: So you need, I needed my gloves, I needed my scarf. I didn’t bring a hat, but I would have used it.
Mikayla: Yes.
Annie: So yeah, be prepared for chilly weather. The Alps are not far at all, so.
Mikayla: No, no, it’s about a two-hour drive from here.
Annie: Yeah.
Mikayla: We got lucky with our weather when we were walking around. It was beautiful that day.
Annie: Yes, yes, we had some very, very nice weather.
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Vieux Lyon and Traboules
Annie: So tell us a little bit about Vieux Lyon and the things to see there.
Mikayla: Yeah, so Vieux Lyon, almost the entire neighborhood is classé, is classed, I guess, as UNESCO World Heritage. So these are very old buildings from medieval times. There’s a lot of color on all the buildings, and a lot of single-pane windows, which makes it very, very cold. [00:20:00] So if you want to live there, it’s a little tricky. But this is also the area where there are cobblestone streets, and where you can find les traboules.
Annie: Yeah.
Mikayla: So this was something I showed Annie while we were walking around, but les traboules are secret passageways between buildings, and you basically enter one end. You walk into a random door. Well, not random, they’re clearly marked. But you walk into a door, you walk through the whole corridor, and you enter on another street, and it was a way of bypassing having to go and snake around from street to street. It was a way to go directly to the river or to take merchandise without having to go back and forth, and these are very, very long streets, so having those shortcuts was really helpful.
Annie: Yeah. Well, if you think about it, even in Toulouse, a lot of these older buildings you have some sort of archway entrance sort of thing.
Mikayla: Mm-hmm
Annie: [00:21:00] Usually there’s a splendid door or something.
Mikayla: Of course.
Annie: Sometimes it’s wide enough for a car or a cart and horse, sometimes not. But in Toulouse very often it is because it, you would have this kind of entranceway and then a big courtyard.
Mikayla: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Annie: The difference with Lyon is that beyond that courtyard, they would have cut it through to the next street on the other side, and so it makes a passage through, and they’re usually not that wide, actually.
Mikayla: No, they’re quite narrow.
Annie: In Toulouse, we have wider passageways to enter the street. The architecture is kind of very specific in Lyon, and of course, there are a lot of tours that you can take that will you know, explain the architecture. The tourist office in Lyon is very busy. They have a lot of official tour guides.
Unfortunately, I didn’t find a single VoiceMap tour of Lyon, which is really sad because I like those, but I [00:22:00] understand that, you know, official tour guides have done a lot of studying and a lot of practice. They practice their craft, and they feel like putting it on a self-guided tour might be giving it away too easily.
Mikayla: Yeah, but yeah, there could be a project there, no?
Annie: Perhaps. Perhaps.
Mikayla: You could always come back.
Annie: Yes, perhaps. I would have to spend more time there to be sure that I include everything, but it’s really it would be so much fun with the traboule. But then, of course, what if that day it’s locked, and you can’t get through it? Because it might happen. Perhaps, there’s, you know, a reason why sometimes they… Most of the time, most of them are open.
Mikayla: Yes. There’s an agreement with the co-owners association of the buildings with the city. So, for the ones that are open, there are specific hours that it is open for. Outside of those hours, you cannot go in.
Annie: Mm-hmm.
Mikayla: Unless you’re a resident there or you have a reason to be there, of course. But it’s true. [00:23:00] Maybe it’s closed for some sort of maintenance or something. I don’t, I don’t know.
Annie: Yeah. Maybe they’re hanging something heavy, and they don’t want it to fall on your head.
Mikayla: Right. Or maybe they’re just tired of people talking really loud.
Annie: Yes, yes. Yes.
Mikayla: And so when you’re going through the traboule, you’re asked to be quite quiet because people do live in these neighborhoods, and so you have to respect the privacy of the peoples there.
Annie: And speaking of this, okay, this is an aside, but while I was in Lyon, No, no, it was in Marseille. It was a few days before. I was in Marseille, and in came a group of Americans who were on a tour. I don’t know if they were on a cruise ship or something, but it was a big group of people, and there was that few people, like she saw a friend of hers 50 meters away or something, and she started screaming, “Oh [00:24:00] my God, it’s so good to see you,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, everybody, like, do you have to do this?
Like, walk to her and then greet her in a normal voice. You do not need to scream it out like you… And perhaps they were long-lost sisters. What do I know?
Mikayla: Right. But there’s a decorum. There’s a way to act.
Annie: Yeah, I have been told many, many times that Americans are loud, and usually I’m just like, “Eh, not all Americans,” but that group was loud. So please, if you see a long-lost sister 50 meters away, do not scream.
Mikayla: Just, no, just walk hurriedly up and go, “Hey, nice to see you.” Give them a big hug and stuff. Don’t start screaming. Anyway, that was the aside.
Cathedral Clocks and Bouchons
Mikayla: Anyway, so Vieux Lyon, let’s talk about, so we talked about the traboule. There’s also the cathedral, the Lyon Cathedral is in Vieux Lyon.
Annie: Yes.
Mikayla: I thought it was beautiful, [00:25:00] very, very nice. It has an astronomical clock.
Annie: Yes, exactly. Did you get to see it chime?
Mikayla: I did. I did. It goes off several times a day. It goes off, like, at 10:00, 11:00, on the hour.
Annie: Yeah, I believe noon, 2:00, 3:00, and 4:00.
Mikayla: Okay.
Annie: I believe those are the times it goes off.
Mikayla: And it’s short. You know, it doesn’t do a ton, but it’s very sweet to see. I love to see these old clocks do their thing. Did you get to also see the clock Gadagne?
Annie: No.
Mikayla: There’s another clock… Okay. There’s another clock in Old Lyon. I think I didn’t point it out to you. And every hour, there’s… It’s encased in glass, and there’s, like, little figures that come out and do a little dance and…
Annie: Oh, I saw it, but not when it was in action.
Mikayla: Okay.
Annie: Yes. I noticed it, but it wasn’t going.
Mikayla: Okay, perfect. What’s interesting about Vieux Lyon is kind of wherever you look, there’s some sort of [00:26:00] history or some, there’s something there to look at. I mean, there’s also many shops, of course, and bouchon, which is the traditional Lyonnais food. But it’s a really interesting neighborhood to kind of walk around in. It’s very different from, at least for me in a lot of my travels. There’s not very many medieval cities like we have in Lyon.
Day Trips Oingt and Pérouges
Mikayla: There’s of course around Lyon many mid- preserved medieval cities like Oingt or Pérouges, but those are a different style, too. Those are all in stone.
Annie: What’s the first one you said? Oingt?
Mikayla: Oingt.
Annie: How, so how do you spell that?
Mikayla: So Oingt is like the number vingt but with an O, so O-I-N-G-T.
Annie: Okay. No, I hadn’t heard of that one.
Mikayla: Beautiful city. I mean, it’s absolutely gorgeous. All the buildings are made in stone, and it’s incredible. It’s absolutely incredible, so I highly suggest everyone to go see. It’s in the heart-
Annie: That’s a day trip out of Lyon, right?[00:27:00]
Mikayla: Yes. It’s in the Beaujolais.
Annie: Okay. Okay.
Mikayla: So you would have to get a car to go there or go on a, a tour, um, and be driven there. Uh, you can’t necessarily take a train or-
Annie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the other one was Pérouges?
Mikayla: Pérouges.
Annie: Pérouges.
Mikayla: Mm-hmm.
Annie: I had heard of that one.
Mikayla: Which is down Lyon.
Annie: Okay. Nice. Nice. So, but really, in Lyon, you can spend a whole week and not do day trips because there’s enough to do there.
Mikayla: No, yeah, so much to do.
Miniature and Cinema Museum
Annie: One of the things that I did in the Vieux Lyon is I went to the Musée du Cinéma et de la Miniature.
Mikayla: Oui. Exact.
Annie: It cost a little… that’s one where you get a discount if you have the city card, but it’s not entirely free. But I think I paid 11 with the discount card, so it was fine.
Mikayla: Oh, that’s not bad.
Annie: And, you know, it starts really slow. It starts with a movie that I had never heard of. So I was like, okay, this is going to be a, literally a dusty old sort of thing. But then as you [00:28:00] progress, you go up the stairs, and you get into some really fun movie, like, sets and costumes, props. They have a massive alien from the Alien.
Mikayla: They have the alien from Alien 2, exactly. That’s their real big claim to fame, and it works.
Annie: When it started moving on the wall…
Mikayla: … Oh, it’s freaky. You’re like, “Mm, I’m going to get out of here.”
Annie: And you know what? The young kids who came in, they didn’t know what it was.
Mikayla: Well, of course. I mean…
Movie Props Museum
Annie: They didn’t know what it was. There were, like, 14-year-olds, there was a group of 14-year-olds, and I was like, “You should be very afraid. This thing can eat you.”
Mikayla: Ah.
Annie: And it’s very swift.
Mikayla: It’s impressive. I mean, it’s huge.
Annie: It is. It was beautiful. So they have a lot of props. They have a lot of references to different movies, mostly American movies, a few French ones, but mostly American movies.
Mikayla: Mm-hmm.
Annie: I thought it was [00:29:00] really fun.
Mikayla: It is. It’s not a museum you get to go to all the time.
Annie: Right. There’s also Lumière Museum But I didn’t go to that one, so you have to tell us about that one if you’ve been.
Mikayla: Yeah. Yes.
Lumiere Film Origins
Mikayla: So I, and I actually took a group of students there, in the past. But the Lumière Museum, it’s about the history of the Lumière brothers who were the ones who invented film. So Lyon, one of the big claims to fame is that that’s where film started. One of the earliest films that was ever produced was in Lyon. I mean, it was silent, of course, it was black and white, it was splotchy pictures, but that’s where it all started, the moving pictures.
And so this museum talks about the evolution and the creation going from, like, zoetropes to modern film. And it’s not in the center of Lyon. It’s quite a ways out because it’s in the home of the Frère Lumière, so it’s in the 8th district.
There’s [00:30:00] also, on the same premises, I believe, it’s a restaurant Paul Bocuse.
Annie: Oh, okay.
Mikayla: So if you want to eat, you can go there too.
Annie: Great. That’s very good. Yeah, that’s very good. So that’s outside of Lyon. All right,
Mikayla: Well, it’s in Lyon, it’s just in a different district, it’s out of the way.
Annie: What else is in the Vieux Lyon?
Mikayla: Let me see. What else do we have? We had the Fourvière funiculaire, Vieux Lyon, Traboule, Amphitheatre.
Annie:
Justice Palace And WWII
Mikayla: The last thing that’s there is the Palais de Justice.
Annie: Ah, okay.
Mikayla: I don’t know if you had a chance to walk by it. It’s a very big palais.
Annie: The one that has the columns, the 24 columns.
Mikayla: The 24 columns. Exactly.
Annie: Yes, I was on the bus going by it a few times.
Mikayla: Okay.
Annie: And also on the river cruise, we went by it.
Mikayla: Mm-hmm. Of course. Beautiful building. Very well known for some high-profile cases, including of Klaus Barbie, who was the butcher of Lyon in the Second World War. Many famous cases took place there. Now I think it’s the Cour d’appel, so it’s the appeals [00:31:00] court of Lyon, so you can’t necessarily go in, but the facade of the building is-
Annie: It’s impressive. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mikayla: It is. It is very impressive.
Annie: The 24 columns just side by side, ding, ding, ding, ding. It’s an impressive, front, definitely. And Lyon also has some very good tours related to World War II, and the résistance in Lyon was big. I did not have time to take one, but I would have liked to because that would have been really interesting.
Mikayla: Yes. It’s fascinating. And we also have the Musée de la Résistance, the Resistance Museum, which is in the 7th district, but it’s on the quai. So it’s right next to the river, and it’s a wonderful, wonderful museum that explains, really World War II and how big the resistance was in Lyon. And really, it’s thanks to Lyon that we succeeded-
Annie: Right
Mikayla: … in the Second World… Well, succeeded, huh. Can you really say succeeded? But [00:32:00] that we were able to combat the Nazi forces. And for a lot of people in Lyon who are born and bred here, like my colleague Sarah, her great-grandfather was in the resistance, you know? And so it’s really, it’s a real big part of Lyon and Lyon’s history.
Annie: Yeah.
Lyon Murals Tour
Annie: Okay, one more thing that you see a lot in Lyon that you don’t see other places is murals. They are kind of scattered all over the place, but you took me to Le Mur des Canuts.
Mikayla: Mm-hmm. Des Canuts.
Annie: Which I thought… Pardon, Canuts, oui. They don’t say the T. That’s right.
Mikayla: We don’t say the T, exactly. This is France. We don’t pronounce the last consonant.
Annie: Well, sometimes we do.
Mikayla: No, I know.
Annie: In the southwest, we certainly do.
Mikayla: In the south, yes, we do. Oh, yes. Yes.
No, it’s true. But in Lyon, no. Le Mur des Canuts.
Annie: Yes.
Mikayla: Exactly.
Annie: And that was very impressive.[00:33:00]
Mikayla: Yes. So it’s a big trompe l’œil. It’s a… How do we say that in English? It’s a-
Annie: I think it’s trompe l’œil.
Mikayla: … trick of the eye?
Is it a trompe l’œil?
Annie: I think it’s trompe l’œil as well.
Mikayla: Okay.
Annie: It looks like it’s 3D, it looks real, but it is flat. It’s just all pictures. It’s all painting.
Mikayla: Yes. Yeah, I just looked it up. Trompe l’œil. Who would have known? No wonder I can’t find the word in English.
Annie: Yes. My goodness.
Mikayla: But yeah, it’s made to look like it’s an extension of the street, and from far away, you would have no idea. And that was something, you know, we discussed. It was the first thing we went to see together, and at first, I think you just assumed it was a normal…
Annie: I thought it was a street. I thought it was just a facade, and it’s not.
Mikayla: And I was like, “Wait, hang on. Hang on, look over there.”
Annie: And I looked at it sideways and went, “Oh, it is totally flat.”
Mikayla: And nobody’s moving.
Annie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and you have several like that. So the Mur [00:34:00] des Canuts is not the one with all the celebrities, or is it the same one?
Mikayla: No.
Annie: Right.
Mikayla: That’s a different one. So that one’s Les Fresques Lyonnais.
Annie: Okay.
Mikayla: And so that one’s down near the river. And that’s where we have all the famous people from Lyon.
Annie: I thought that one was awesome because I recognized a lot of the people, so it was, “Oh, oh, I know this one, and I know this one,” you know?
Mikayla: Exactly, and while we were there, there was actually another tour group, and we heard them say that they’re planning on repainting it here coming up soon, and moving everybody who’s there up, up a little bit and adding new people because this is, it’s a bit dated, and so it’s time to add a few more personnage, a few more people on there.
Annie: Yeah, and Lyon has had its share of famous people. It’s impressive. Paul Bocuse, of course, but you also have…
Mikayla: Saint-Exupéry.
Annie: Yeah, The Petit Prince, Saint-Exupéry, well, the author of The Petit Prince.
[00:35:00] Les Frères Lumière. Stefan Bern, a historian.
He’s huge in France. I don’t know if Americans really know about Stefan Bern.
Mikayla: Not so much, but they can watch all of his stuff on YouTube.
Annie: True.
Mikayla: It’s all on YouTube.
Annie: True, true, true.
Mikayla: If people like history and art, and their wonderful programs. No, there was lots… Who else was on there? Gilbert Joseph.
Annie: Yeah, Gilbert Joseph, you see those bookstores everywhere, well, they were there. Well, just a great, great… a great place to visit, definitely.
Mikayla: Yes.
Annie: So, and there are also guided tours of the most, of all the street art, and there’s a lot of people are interested in this. I, typically I am not, but I have to say, in Lyon you hit it out of the park. You did great. They were really beautiful. They were really lovely.
Mikayla: Yes. I mean, we love our façade, no, our fresque…
Frescoes. Frescoes. Yeah, frescoes. That’s the Italian word. I’m looking for the [00:36:00] English one, the murals, like you said.
Annie: Yeah.
Mikayla: The murals.
Annie: Yeah.
Mikayla: But there’s much more in terms of street art. I think I had explained to you, we didn’t, I forgot to mention it to you earlier when we were up in Croix-Rousse, but on the ground there’s an artist who fills in holes and cracks in the street with mosaic.
Annie: Mm-hmm.
Mikayla: And there’s hundreds all over Lyon, and it’s a fun little thing to see, and it’s beautiful, and you can find maps of all the different ones.
Annie: Yeah, and you have the Space Invaders on the façades as well.
Mikayla: Yeah.
Annie: That’s… a lot of cities do that.
Mikayla: Yes, yes.
Annie: And the other big part of the history of Lyon is the history of silk, which I thought was fascinating.
Mikayla: It’s incredible.
Annie: I did actually two tours about that. One was a guided tour, it was in French, so the soierie, and also, of some of the traboules. Some of them are really picturesque, some of these traboules, and some of them are very [00:37:00] utilitarian.
Mikayla: Yes, it’s a mix of everything. There’s, I don’t even know how many you can still walk through, probably about 300.
Annie: Yeah.
Mikayla: I mean, there were thousands before.
Annie: If you go to Google, in a Google Maps you say traboule maps, you know, if you want a map of the traboule, Google has them all mapped out for you, and you can, I guess, go visit them all.
Mikayla: Yeah, try and walk them all. That would be a long walk.
Annie: That would be a very long walk. But you do have sites that explain the big ones, the ones that you definitely should see, or that have something interesting or history that happened there.
Mikayla: Right, because the Canut, I mean, there was a whole history of… So we did an episode with Elyse about the history of textiles and of silk. But I really, I wasn’t really aware of this, that from very early on there had been silk making in Lyon.
Annie: Yes.
Mikayla: And it just kept on getting bigger and bigger and bigger with [00:38:00] successive French kings who were ordering more and more silk. And of course, if French kings wear silk, then Italian want, Spanish and Dutch and all of Europe wanted to have their silk.
And the big centers of silk productions in the world even to this day are China, Italy, and France. That’s where you have most of it. But then in Lyon you have the invention of the Jacquard machine, which is one that sits on top of a normal loom and makes it four meters high, and that explains why so many buildings that were built in the Croix-Rousse area, neighborhood of Lyon, had to have very high ceilings.
Annie: Yes, and it was to house not only the machine, which is [00:39:00] extremely tall to make the very specific patterns, right? But it was also to house the workers. So the workers lived and worked. They were already doing télétravail.
Mikayla: Yeah.
Annie: You know, they were already working from home.
Mikayla: Yes.
For better or for worse, you know, they weren’t paid very, very well, but they were living in the same place where they were creating these silk patterns.
Annie: It was really interesting because I did two tours around this. I did one with a city guide, and where she… So there’s the Maison des Canuts that you can visit.
Mikayla: Mm-hmm.
Annie: And that was very interesting, and you see some looms, and you see a Jacquard machine in action.
Mikayla: Hmm.
Annie: But it’s a very old Jacquard machine.
Mikayla: Yes.
Annie: I mean, the lady only did, like, three or four lines because…
Mikayla: It takes so long.
Annie: Yeah, and I think she didn’t want to mess up the pa- like, she wasn’t sure. She was like, “Oh, I’m not sure. I don’t want to…” Because if you make another line, and then you have to undo it, it takes even longer. That was kind of a brief demonstration, but then I [00:40:00] had a longer demonstration when the guide, the guided tour took us to the Maison des Soieries or something like this, about Soieries.
Mikayla: Mm-hmm.
Annie: And there they have newer machines that were actually in use until 2001.
Mikayla: Wow. That’s impressive.
Annie: And you get to see it in the context of an apartment. So they hadn’t renovated the apartment. The apartment was still in… Even though the machines were getting used till 2001, people weren’t living there anymore.
Mikayla: Of course.
Annie: They would, like, cram in three or four looms with the Jacquard extension on top, and also do a mezzanine where people could live. And for a family to make a good living, they needed to have minimum three looms and have minimum three people working full time, like, and they never stopped really. And that machine was, had an engine to it, so it was a little faster, but it smelled [00:41:00] like grease in there. It smelled like engine grease. I don’t know how to…
Mikayla: Right. It’s a machine.
Annie: Yeah, it’s a machine.
And what happens is the Jacquard system is like a precursor to the computer because it’s a card, so it’s either zero or one, and as the card progresses, it tells the machine which threads to lift, so that…
Mikayla: The thread can pass through.
Annie: … the thread, the other, the color thread can pass through. So you have… like lengthwise, you have possibly a very long, you know, they can have up to 4,000 threads wide.
Mikayla: Wow. That’s enormous.
Annie: Yes, and these long threads, they wind them around a massive bobbin, I guess, that can be, you know, 200 meters long or whatever. And then as that progresses, it will pinch specific threads and lift them so that your color thing can go back and forth and back and forth. And every [00:42:00] time it goes one way, they have to pull a thing towards them to kind of make it tight, to tighten all of this. Anyway, it’s a very noisy machine.
Mikayla: Very noisy.
Annie: I cannot imagine how you could have so many people working in that environment. Nowadays very little silk is made that way, at least in France, and one of the strange things they said is that if you buy any here at the shop, you’re buying silk from China.
Mikayla: Oh, no. That’s sad.
Annie: It costs 150 for a big scarf, but the ones made in Lyon these days are more like 1,500.
Mikayla: Yes, because they’re very artisanal.
Annie: Yeah, they’re very artisanal. So very, a very interesting visit. I thought it was… And then I learned about the Revolte des Canuts, which was also an interesting thing because the Canuts, the families that were making this silk, unless they had enough looms, they [00:43:00] were not doing great, and it’s the soyeux, the people who sold, who commissioned the work and also sold the work, they were very wealthy, and they didn’t…
Mikayla: Oh, yeah, they were doing just fine.
Annie: Right, and they didn’t live in the same area because it was too noisy.
Mikayla: Exactly.
Annie: So they had their own… Anyway, fascinating history there.
River Cruise And Hills
Annie: I really enjoyed it so much, and I also took a river cruise.
Mikayla: With the Bateaux Lyonnais?
Annie: Bateaux Lyonnais, which was very nice. A very, very happy-go-lucky guide who was giving us the tour in both French and English.
Mikayla: Oh, that’s lovely.
Annie: His English was sometimes approximate, but you know what? He was funny. He was funny.
Mikayla: And they also offer brunch, lunch, and dinner cruises.
Annie: Oh, okay.
Mikayla: So you can also do a much longer trip. You go much further up the river. It’s about three or four hours. We’ve done it before. It was very lovely, and the food was [00:44:00] great.
Annie: I thought it was pleasant. Like, I, honestly, it was a really pleasant way to… Mine was just an hour, but it was great, and to see the confluence between the two rivers was impressive.
Mikayla: It is.
Annie: Kind of it’s like Paris in a way. I mean, obviously Lyon is a mini Paris.
Mikayla: Yes, it is. I mean, we even have our mini Eiffel Tower too.
Annie: It’s a mini Paris with better hills. Paris has no hills to speak of except for Montmartre. Yes. Well, you also have the another one, the one with the…
Yeah, Bute Chaumont.
Mikayla: Bute Chaumont, exactly.
Annie: But they’re not as impressive.
Mikayla: No, because these are, what we have are real hills. I mean, I’m not trying to flaunt Lyon. I mean, I kind of am, but they are real hills, and walking up them is fun.
Annie: Right. So the first day I got there, I decided I was going to walk down the hill to the river. It was about a mile long. I didn’t realize it was going to be a mile long, on the map it didn’t look that far, but it was. And I thought, “I’m [00:45:00] definitely not walking up that hill again,” like, no, uh-uh, not happening. Down was hard enough on my knees, so I wasn’t going to do that going up. But with the public transportation, it’s really great.
Mikayla: And on both hills we have the funicular so you don’t have to walk up the hills.
Annie: Right. Line C of the Lyon metro is just a funicular up and down. It used to be a traditional funicular, and then they turned it into a Line C of the metro.
Mikayla: Yes.
Annie: Which I didn’t realize. That’s why I exited the metro. I was looking for the funicular.
Mikayla: Right. Oh, right, and it’s right in there.
Annie: And I was looking for… I’m like, “What the?” And then I talked to somebody and they told me, “It’s right in there.”
Mikayla: And you found your way.
Annie: Yeah. Lovely, lovely city.
(Mid-roll ad spot)
Confluences Museum
Annie: One more thing I want to mention for sure is the Musée des Confluences, because when they described it to me, I wasn’t sure what I was going to see. They said it was like a sort of natural history museum.
Mikayla: Yes.
Annie: And it kind of [00:46:00] is, but unlike most natural history museums, this one is very, very modern. The displays, the way they do the muséographie is what you’d call it is very modern.
The exhibitions are all beautiful, very well done. There’s one section that’s all about death, and you’d think, “What can you possibly say about death?” Well, let me tell you, it was fascinating. It was really, really interesting. On one level, they have all the permanent exhibits, which are really cool, and on a lower level, they have the temporary exhibits. There was one about zombies, the zombies, the Haitian zombies, not the zombies in the movies. And it was very interesting. I knew absolutely nothing about this, and it was very cool.
Anyway, a great museum. I bought a sandwich there because it was, like, 3:00 and I hadn’t had lunch, and it was not very good. Don’t buy the sandwiches.
[00:47:00] Yeah.
It’s not good.
Mikayla: It’s not known for its food, let’s just say that.
Annie: Well, it was… I mean, it’s a beautiful cafeteria on top. They also have a restaurant at the bottom, but it was empty because it was 3:00 PM. It was, I, yeah.
Mikayla: It’s 3:00 PM, yeah.
Annie: They would have served me. They told me they would have served me.
Food Markets Specialties
Annie: I was like, “Eh, no, I’ll go upstairs and check it out.” And speaking of restaurant, we need to mention, I went to the Les Halles Paul Bocuse, which are very famous.
Mikayla: Mm. Wonderful.
Annie: And they are nice, but I was surprised how it wasn’t that busy for a Thursday at noon. like the Halle in Toulouse are much busier. But then when I started looking at the prices, I realized why they weren’t so busy because, oof, the prices are high.
Mikayla: Yes. It’s very high. Les Halles in Lyon I feel is much more for professionals, as in professional chefs or people who are… plus aisés.
You know, they have more money. They’re [00:48:00] looking for something specific.
You have all of the specialties, but because they’re made artisanally, it’s coming with a very different price. Whereas I find that in the south, for the most part, as someone who used to live in Nîmes and my fiancé, he’s from Béziers, Les Halles in the south are much more every day.
Annie: Yes.
Mikayla: You go when you buy your stuff for the week if you need it. Sure, there’s some artisanal things, but it’s, there’s much more of a culture around Les Halles.
In Lyon we are the gastronomical center of France, and so there’s a higher level of, I don’t want to say quality or of product, but there’s a little more prestige around it, which allows them to up their prices.
Food Specialties of Lyon
Annie: Yes. Yes. And to talk about, you know, Lyon specialties, of course you have the salade lyonnaise with the crouton and egg.
Mikayla: Crouton and lardon.
Annie: Lardon, poached egg. It’s very nice. You have the quenelle de Lyon.
Mikayla: The quenelle, exactly.
Annie: Very [00:49:00] nice. You have this thing called the saucisson something or other.
Mikayla: Saucisson brioché.
Annie: Brioché, yeah, that’s, that’s like 99% butter and fat.
Mikayla: Yes, which is actually most Lyonnais food.
Annie: Yeah.
Mikayla: If you don’t like butter, if you don’t like pork or lard, or kind of random ingredients, you’re not going to like Lyonnais food.
Annie: Yeah, they have these œufs en meurette, just like they do in the rest of the Beaujolais, which are eggs with a wine sauce. It’s an acquired taste, but what else?
I mean, they have the cervelle de canut, which is a soft cheese with chives and things like… you know it’s…
Anyway, they have some very interesting things that you find at all the restaurants really. And they have a high concentration of Michelin-starred restaurants.
So people who like to go to Michelin-star restaurants will have… I mean, you’re not going to go hungry in Lyon. There’s lots of wonderful food [00:50:00] everywhere.
Mikayla: There’s restaurants everywhere. You won’t go hungry. Rue Mercière is very famous for just being a street lined with restaurants.
Annie: Mm-hmm.
Mikayla: If you don’t know what to eat that night, walk down Rue Mercière and you’re going to find something.
Annie: Yes. Yes. Man, time flies when you talk about Lyon.
Mikayla: I know. I know. But I think we also have to mention one of the specialties in Lyon is the praline.
Annie: Oh.
Mikayla: The praline rose.
Annie: Les pralines et pralus. Oh.
Mikayla: Pralus, exactly.
Annie: You don’t say the S either?
Mikayla: No.
Annie: Dang it.
Mikayla: The praluline. Praluline.
Annie: You know, you guys are tricky.
Mikayla: I know.
Annie: Okay, pralu.
I know.
Lovely. I’ve said pralus my whole life. Absolutely delicious. And so we bought one, little ones for us to enjoy on our walk.
Mikayla: Oh, those were lovely.
Annie: Then I bought a normal regular sized one to have at my apartment. And then, from the airport I bought one in a, kind of in a metal tin case. [00:51:00] That was really good because you can put that in your suitcase. I hadn’t bought one to take home because I thought it’s just going to be squished and nasty. It wouldn’t be nasty, but it protects it really, really well. So if you want to take one home of this praluline, buy it at the airport. It’s 27 euros, but well spent, well spent.
Mikayla: And after you’ve eaten the praluline, you still have the tin to remember it by.
Annie: Absolutely wonderful city. I recommend it.
And I also recommend that people, you know, they should go visit you and take some classes for… You sometimes organize events, right?
Mikayla: Yes. So, usually about once a year we do something that’s called a séjour linguistique. It’s a language learning retreat. And so we welcome students for a week, and we do French classes and tourism, but we link them. So what you learn in class is what we’re going to experience in the activity, so you’re able to take full advantage and not have to worry about, [00:52:00] wait, what’s that word, or I didn’t understand that. So we prepare the activities before they happen. But we also just started doing what we call walk and talks. So especially for people who are visiting Lyon, if they want to kind of have an experience like what you and I did, we meet with students at a cafe. We start having a conversation, and then we walk around Lyon.
Annie: So that would be really good because, people often ask me if they could do the boot camp visits that we do with Elyse, but in French. And, well, while it, I mean, speaking French kind of comes natural to me, but we don’t, we can’t do a whole visit in French because we don’t have enough people at the same level of French to be able to do this. But you probably do your visits in French then when you do this walk and talk?
Mikayla: Some of them we do in French, some of them we don’t. Sorry, with the walk and talk, no, that’s with us. And so that is in French.
Annie: Okay, okay.
Mikayla: Unless we need to go into English. But for the séjour, for the language learning retreat, which is a much longer trip, [00:53:00] because we accept all levels, many of the tours we do in English.
Annie: Okay.
Mikayla: But it doesn’t mean you don’t have French learning that goes with it.
Annie: Right.
Mikayla: But for example, in our last trip, we did have one tour that was fully in French, we visited the L’Hermitage de Montsandre. And the tour guide didn’t speak English, so we did it in French.
Annie: Ah.
Mikayla: And it was… it was so lovely, and it was so… It’s an incredible place. So some of it is in French, some of it is in English, but we make sure to prepare so that everyone has an idea of what they’re going into.
Annie: Wonderful. Wonderful.
So tell us again the name of your company and how people can reach you.
Mikayla: Yes. So my company is Pardon My Learning, and you can find us at pardonmylearning.com. We also have all the social media, so you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitch, YouTube, wherever you want.
Annie: All of it. Right. And also you can, I mean, I assume you can do a, kind of a panel of lessons. You can buy 10 lessons or 20 [00:54:00] lessons or spread them out how you want.
Mikayla: Yeah. We keep track of lessons that we give during the month, and we just send a bill at the end of the month. So if you do two or if you do four, we only charge for the lessons we teach. So you can do a lesson every other week. You do it once a month, once a year, or every week. We have students with different objectives and different goals, and so long as they have a safe space to come to where they don’t feel judged and they feel encouraged, that’s our ultimate goal.
Annie: Excellent.
Farewell And Thanks
Annie: Thank you so much, Mikayla. You’re a delight to both talk to on the podcast and hang out with. I can see why people like you.
Mikayla: Thank you.
Annie: When I told people that I had had a chance to visit with you, they were like, “Oh, you’re so lucky,” you know? Yes, I am. Yes, yes, I am.
Mikayla: Well, it was a pleasure for me too, and I was really happy to show you around, you know, the city that I’m not from, but it is now my home, you know?
Annie: Yes.
Mikayla: And I love it here.
I’m happy to share it with everyone.
Annie: Trust me, there’s a lot of people who know more about Toulouse than I [00:55:00] do, and even though I was born and raised there, if I had to guide in Toulouse, it would be difficult for me because I’d never do that.
Now let me loose in Paris and I’m great. And you have a lot of Parisians who wouldn’t have any idea, any idea whatsoever.
Mikayla: It’s true. It’s true.
Annie: So yeah, there you go.
Mikayla: Yeah.
Annie: Thank you so much, Mikayla.
Mikayla: Thank you. Merci beaucoup.
Annie: And best wishes to you. I know you’re getting married soon.
Mikayla: I am. I am. And lots to do for that.
Annie: Yes.
Mikayla: Oh, my goodness.
Annie: Best of everything. Thank you so much.
Mikayla: Merci, merci.
Annie: Au revoir.
Mikayla: Au revoir.
Copyright
Annie Sargent: The join us in France Travel Podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Annie Sargent and copyright 2026 by Addicted to France. It is released [00:56:00] under a Creative Comments, attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives license.[00:57:00]
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Episode PageCategories: Learn French, Lyon Area