Explorer la beauté de Lyon
We began the day with an early morning visit to the local market.
Ben who is a part of Sport dans la Ville took us around the city. It was a first of a kind for us where we used public transport in Lyon which included Tram and Metro. We met the official mascot of FIFA Women’s World Cup “Ettie” at the Gare de Lyon Part-Dieu Metro Station.
We then headed towards Bellecour which is one of the largest Open squares in Europe and largest pedestrian square in Europe. Lyon is famous for its food. Lyonnaise cuisine refers to cooking traditions and practices centering on the area around the French city of Lyon[1] and the historical culinary traditions Lyonnais. In the sixteenth century Catherine de Medici brought cooks from Florence to her court and they prepared dishes from the agricultural products from the regions of France. This was revolutionary, as it combined the fresh, diverse, and indigenous nature of regional produce with the know-how of Florentine cooks.
The result was that regional specialities became elevated in status among royalty and nobility. Lyonnaise cuisine became a crossroads of many regional culinary traditions. A surprising variety of ingredients from many nearby places emerged: summer vegetables from farms in Bresse and Charolais, game from the Dombes, lake fish from Savoy, spring fruits and vegetables from Dr?me and Ardèche, and wines from Beaujolais and the Rhone Valley. (Wikipedia)
In the middle, there is an equestrian statue of King Louis XIV by Fran?ois-Frédéric Lemot (1825). Bellecour is also situated between the Sloane river and the Rhone river.
We then crossed the Rhone River to reach the Cathédrale Saint-Jean-Baptiste where we offered our prayers and walked across narrow lanes of Lyon.
We finally reached the Festival venue “Sport dans la Ville” to have lunch and waited for the other delegations to arrive. Sport dans la Ville is a magnificent campus with 7 artificial turf fields (5-a-side football) and an athletics track (4 lanes) (https://www.sportdanslaville.com/nos-programmes/sport/) (https://parcsetsports.fr/realisation/campus-sport-ville/)
The delegations started arriving post lunch and we were set for the start of the festival. The Festival 19 was officially started by introducing each team from different countries and the festival began with a bang!