Going to Lyon before Christmas was more of a spur of the moment kind of thing, as my girlfriend (Caro) and I wanted to go somewhere before she went back to Madrid for the holidays. The closest city that was do-able for one weekend happened to be Lyon, and it was fantastic. The morning of departure started off rocky as misconfusions after misconfusions left me pouty and upset (almost not going at all), but after much reconcilliation from Caro, we were on the train to France!
Lyon is known for its cuisine (in France!) as well as its charming UNESCO listed old town, but what I loved most about this city were the myriad of frescoes dotted around the walls of buildings known as Trompe l'Oeil. Here are some of the murals, with one of them containing a drawing of all of the famous Lyonnais people, including the author of Le Petit Prince.
Much of our time was spent walking around aimlessly through the old town, which had nothing in particular, but also everything wonderful. Little narrow streets where you hope to get lost, only to find yourself across from St. Paul's Church or the statue of the Sun King, Louis XIV.
For Christmas Eve, my American friend took pity on me and invited me to have a nice dinner with her and her family so that was delightful. Unfortunately, I didn't have the merriest christmas as most of my friends were gone for the holidays, and so my other friend who was left alone in Lausanne, well, we went to a Chinese restaurant on Christmas. But I knew that I was leaving to go to Germany and Spain in a few days so I didn't really care all too much.
I left for Munich on Thursday, the day before New Year's Eve with 2 of my English friends that I had met in Cambodia and live in Liverpool. They asked me if I was interested in joining up with them for New Year's in Munich, and I said, Hell Yeah. So I hopped on the train, an easy 6 hour ride to the capital of Bavaria, I go! Sadly, most of the time with my friends was spent partying until the wee hours of the night so sightseeing was left on the back burner.
Of the sightseeing that I managed to do, I quite enjoyed the museum, Alte Pinakothek, one of three world-famous museums in an art cluster of Munich. I chose to spend time in this one for its Renaissance paintings, Italian, German, French, and everything in between (not geographically, that would be Switzerland)
Now that I have enjoyed 2 Free Tours (Barcelona and Paris, more on this later), I wish I had done it in Munich, but I guess I just need to come back to this blue-and-white city once more. Marienplatz is the most prominent square in the center of the city, and the main tower houses the moving German figurines that kick the Austrian's ass at the end.
To the north of the city is the premier Nazi headquarters in the beginning of the reign, and some of the buildings are still intact. This is the city where Hitler tried a coup at the famous Hofbrauhaus (which is just a jolly good ol' drinking tent now)and tried to seize power, only to fail until a decade after. I visited the famous beer hall, not really to investigate the dark history, but to be greeted by liters of beer and sauerkraut, and drink with singin' Italian men (I'm not sure if true Germans ever come here...)
And of course, on New Year's Eve, we partied until 4 am in the city center where young hooligans were chucking fireworks at people (it was quite dangerous now that I think about it) and drinking champagne. It was strange to not be by a major body of water for New Year's for the first time.
And this is how I welcomed the year 2011. 2010 was a crazy, fun, marvelous year, and I hope this new year will bring as many adventures and surprises!
I promise I'll update very very soon.
- Ryoji
