{"id":2776,"date":"2019-09-21T12:26:44","date_gmt":"2019-09-21T11:26:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/?p=2776"},"modified":"2021-06-17T21:38:28","modified_gmt":"2021-06-17T20:38:28","slug":"france-mid-to-south-and-to-the-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/?p=2776","title":{"rendered":"France – Mid to South, and To The Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lyon<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It transpires that Lyon was a Roman town called Lugdunum, capital of the area called Gaul. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also the second largest city on France, after Paris, and we can now agree with that having only explored one area of it.  It\u2019s a sprawling city, split up by the River Soane and the Rhone, creating a huge island in the middle, but with very old historic parts of Fouviere which overlooks the whole city. It has 9 different “areas” – called arondissements, as in Paris. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its also probably one of few cities that we have visited that have a Cathedral, and a Basilica, as well as about a dozen churches! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We firstly visited the Saint Jean Cathedral on the banks of the River Soane, a huge stone building in a square, which was first built in 1180 on the remains of a 7th century church and completed in 1476.   It is a familiar sight in France, a Gothic exterior, all internal stone columns, stone roof and stone towers and quite plain internally with very little decoration.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n