Blaise has a couple of professional friends in Clermont-Ferrand, in the center of France. Both of them, confusingly enough, are named Sébastien, and both, naturally, study philosophy of mathematics. Both of them, also, suggested that he might wish to come visit Clermont-Ferrand, and give a talk at one of their workshops, and one suggested that, should he desire to bring us with, he would be happy to put us up for a few days at his country house in the Cantal. So it was arranged. We would go to Central France for a week, and spend the first several days in Clermont-Ferrand and then the weekend at Sébastien's country house. In due time, I made arrangements to rent a car, picking it up on Sunday morning, and dropping it back off on the following Monday morning. Then, of course, Blaise rechecked the schedule, and discovered that our hotel reservation in Clermont-Ferrand wasn't actually due to begin until Monday night, and so we had to figure out what to do.
Obviously, the easiest thing would have been to change our car reservation, and to plan to pick it up on Monday morning instead of Sunday, thereby cutting our trip a day shorter but saving some cash. Instead, Blaise suggested that Lyon (the third largest city in France, in case you were wondering) was only a couple of hours from Clermont-Ferrand, and that, furthermore, the other Sébastien (i.e, the one without the country house) was from Lyon and would probably be more than happy to give us ideas about what we might like to do there. We could drive to Lyon on Sunday, spend the night and the morning on Monday, and then head for Clermont-Ferrand in time to check in to our hotel before Blaise had to give his talk at 5:00.
Of course Sébastien was happy to tell us what we should see in Lyon (far more than anyone could possibly fit into a long evening and a morning, no matter how determined they were). The next step was finding a hotel that could house all of us, no mean feat during spring vacation in a country where it seems that many hotels have only two person rooms. After sifting through the options on Booking.com, I found a well located hotel with two family rooms, one of which appeared to meet our needs and which was still available.
Sunday morning, Blaise took the train to the Gare de Lyon to pick up our rental car, and the kids and I got together our things for the trip. We bought a cellphone without a calling plan for the trip, and we had agreed that he would call and let the phone ring once when he got to the car, and then again when he found a parking place in front of the apartment, at which point we would drag our stuff (luggage, backpacks, and, of course, car seats) down the elevator. By the time we had waited 30 minutes after his first phone call, I had decided that his arrival must necessarily be imminent, and suggested to the kids that we begin the process of moving our things to a spot in front of the church. We could all take the first load down, and then Sapphire and Ezio could wait with our things while Cherry and I went up for another load. When we got down the second time, we were greeted by a breathless Ezio, with the news that "Papa has an SUV!" This was not at all what I had reserved, but evidently it was what the car rental place had available as an automatic, and so it's what we ended up with. After some difficulty getting the car seats installed (the headrests came forward over the seat, and Cherry's car seat is quite tall), we were off to Lyon.
Our drive was relatively uneventful. We stopped partway through to eat our picnic lunch at a roadside rest area, and the kids played for a little while on the playground after lunch. Sapphire was dismayed to discover that all of the toilets were squats because, she claims, she always ends up getting the back of her pants and shoes wet. Cherry, who ends up peeing outside with alarming regularity, was unfazed. I ended up holding Sapphire's hand while she squatted, which worked.
We arrived in Lyon without further incident, and found our hotel without much difficulty, and then another problem presented itself. Although we had reserved a parking space in the hotel garage, said garage was located a half kilometer away, and the temporary parking on the street in front of the hotel was full. I climbed out and went to check in while Blaise drove around the block, and then we all rode to the parking garage. Another problem: French parking garages are not designed for SUVs. Eventually we managed to get the car parked, and headed back to drop off our backpacks in our hotel room, which was very cool. The kids had their own room with 3 single beds, which was separated from our part of the room by the bathrooms (in proper French fashion, the toilet was in its own room) and two sets of doors.
Then, needing to take advantage of our brief stay in Lyon, we headed out. First, to the Place Bellecour, which, being located directly across the street from our hotel, was not much of a walk. Then we walked to to the Hotel de Ville, passing though some other squares on the way. On the way back, we stopped for dinner at a restaurant which claimed to serve authentic Lyonnais food. Then, back toward the hotel, with an impromptu detour to visit a memorial to one of the first hospitals in France. (It was torn down in the early 20th century, but the people of Lyon left (built?) a big stone tower as a memorial.) Then we spotted a sculpture of a tree covered by enormous flowers of all types and colors, so of course we had to go see that, and then the river was only a few steps away so we saw that. Then, back to the hotel where all three kids begged to be allowed to take a bath, something that they hadn't been able to do since we left the US. (In case you were worried, we do have a shower in Paris--just not a tub.) And Blaise prevailed on me to let them, despite the fact that it was already nearly 10:00.
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