France’s Most UNDERRATED City?! FIRST Day in LYON, FRANCE | Everything To Eat, See, & Do

Good morning from Lyon. Oh, same time. Nice. We have made it to France. Officially our third country on our URail adventure here. Yeah, so we got here from Zermatt actually. Another gorgeous train ride. We went by this Swiss lake with the snow-covered mountains in the background. So gorgeous again. We've really been enjoying traveling by train, but today is all about exploring Lyon, eating lots of good food, and just soaking in the city. So I always struggle with pronunciation, and French is particularly a struggle for me. So bear with us today, you guys. We're actually staying in this neighborhood. I'm not even going to try to pronounce it. This is actually recommended from a foreign exchange student we met back in Washington, our home. This is his local neighborhood, and we're so glad we're staying here just because it is such a great feel. The people are so kind and friendly and welcoming. So if you're ever in Lyon, we highly recommend staying here. We've actually been to France before. Tommy and I honeymooned in the south of France. We did a road trip, and then we've been to Paris a couple times. But we've never been to Lyon before, so I'm very excited to explore the city. And it's like the food capital of... Turn around because there's a car coming. The food capital of France, supposedly. So I'm excited to eat lots of good food. So we just walked up to the Mural des Canutes. It's the largest mural here in Europe. It's actually so cool. It's so lifelike when you're walking up to it. I'm like, are those actual windows or are those painted windows? There's so much to look at and so much detail. It was actually painted by a collective of professional local artists in, I think, 1987. And then I think it's continuously updated. I think in the past it was supposed to represent the life of the silk workers here in Lyon. And then now it kind of depicts local life because you can see very modern things in the mural. Anyway, it's very cool. I love that they have benches here for us to just sit and ponder the art. I'm so glad we came, isn't it? I know. Wow, it's spectacular artwork. I know. It's so trippy and you can sit like a wall sit next to the wall. It looks like you're sitting in the painting. It's very cool. So this is one of the second versions. It's a dad. He has his kid with a bicycle. And then here, it's the dad by himself as an old man with a bicycle. Oh wow, that's such a nice touch. So it's a super easy walk from the neighborhood we're staying at. I didn't realize we're actually on top of like Old Town. So the whole way down, it's a nice walking path. All these buildings are so colorful and cool. We're in, how do you say plaza in French? Maybe we just stick the English on this one. Okay, so we're here in the Plaza de Terreau. This statue was actually built by the same guy who built the Statue of, who designed the Statue of Liberty. It's so pretty. Is this weird that I'm eating this on the side of the road? They wrapped it so nicely. Took us to a fancy spot. Yeah, this place is known for their famous Praline. It's like a Leonese specialty. It's basically a big fluffy brioche bun and it has pralines in it. And pralines are like candied almonds and hazelnuts. They like cook the almonds and hazelnuts with sugar and candy them. And then they're baked into this brioche bun. But the thing that makes this super unique is these are pink. Look how good that looks. It's pink. This was the small bun. This was €7.40. And they also have like a bigger version that was €13. Bigger than that? Oh yeah, get after it girl. Oh my gosh, I almost ate the cardboard. This bread is so buttery and fluffy. The crunchy candies. This is a great find. Thank you. Can I get one more bite? Oh my gosh, you ate the whole thing already? We really did just stand here and scarf this entire thing. It's that good. So the city seems super easy to navigate and very bike-friendly. Tons of locals on the bikes going back and forth. Really like the vibe of this place. Seems very relaxed compared to like Paris. Thank you. We picked out some seafood. This place was super busy so I think it's a good choice. Yes, it's packed too. I was a little rushed but we have come to Les Halles de Paul Foucault. It's a food hall and we kind of rushed in here because the last seating to eat is at two. So we like found a place that we wanted to eat and got sat quickly. But yeah, we're here at this place that serves seafood. It's very busy, very packed and we've ordered an oyster, chuck roast platter and some wine. Cheers. That's worth the price tag. It was 33 euros for this entire platter which is pretty good. I did want to get the fresh lobster. They said it was caught this morning but it was like 70 euros for just one. If we split it, Sammy said we couldn't do it. I wasn't sure how I felt about seafood this early in the day but Tommy convinced me and I was like, oh oysters really? They're so good. They're really good. I don't know about the rest of this stuff. Are you technically in France if you don't get some snails too? Oh my gosh. Oh look at that big guy. Do I just eat it like this? Yeah, that's so much flavor. That's really good you guys. It doesn't look good. That's tasty. So we have a whole tray of these little bugs and they're so small with the shell. I have no idea how to eat them. I feel like I just eat the whole thing. It'd be easier but let's see. Oh oh we're getting somewhere. That's a lot of work for just a tiny little bite. Yummy though. Salty. Good flavor. Oh that's yeah super yummy. Oh my gosh those are so good. Okay try a snail now. It has the most flavor out of everything. I promise they are so good. I'm not convinced. Oh Tommy, I don't know about this. You really gotta work it. Oh yeah. I don't know. Tommy, I can't look at it like that. Just eat it. I can't do it. It's truly so good. Yeah. This bit? This? Like hard. Okay. That gave me the heebie-jeebies a little bit. That's good flavor. Okay with mayo. We're getting friendly help over here. Thank goodness. Thank you. It's not my favorite. No? You're in your head. It's not bad though but I don't like it. This was a nice market. They have a lot of stuff here. They have like takeaway goods like meats and cheeses, vegetables. And then it was nice for us to come and have like a light lunch of seafood too. It was good. Cookies, dolce. Time for round two. Yeah so why did you want to come here most of all? Okay when I was looking at this market, I had like read about like the meats and cheeses from the area. And I wanted to come here and do a charcuterie board. But when we first arrived, we were like trying to get into a place. All the tables were full. But now one's open. Found a spot. Yeah. So this one is the pate foie gras and the chicken and mustard. Okay these are like um I don't know how to say them and I don't speak French. But these are things I wanted to try. I had a bite of this thing with the pate. Oh that's so good. I'm not a fan of this. But that's okay. It's fine. More for me. Yeah this one is different. You think it's chicken liver and mustard or just chicken and mustard? It's much better than the first one. But I love that. This one was the the translation is the brain of canuts. Like the silk workers. But it's like a cream cheese with garlic and herbs. And yeah this is what I had wanted. This is exactly what I wanted. I'm so excited. Okay yay fine. One of my favorite things is a charcuterie board. So this is the Jesus. The Jesus. It's the local cured meat here and they own. It's such a shame they only give you one little piece of it. Because it is unbelievable. Look how big a piece of cheese they gave you here. One tiny bit of the jamon and a huge chunk of cheese. Now I get down with this all day every day. Cheers you guys. So this was like a melted cheese with honey and blueberry he said. It smells good. Oh wow. Has a nice kick to it. So much flavor. Keep holding the camera. Let me try everything. Once Sammy stops I won't have a. I'll only get a couple more bite sheets so fast. So that totally hit the spot. Our waiter was perfect recommendations too. He recommended this wine we wouldn't have normally ordered. Fit perfectly with all the cheeses and the meat tray. My throat sounded like a frog. Anyways it was so fantastic. So salty. Hits the spot. Nothing better than meat and cheeses. All right now it's time to go work all this off. We got a lot of walking to do and some sights to see. You ready? I'm ready. Let's do it. I'm feeling pretty good after those two glasses of wine. I was literally. Get out of my head. I was literally thinking the same thing. Let's walk it off. I was like wow perfect time to go sightseeing because I'll feel a little tipsy. Sammy. Me? You? Look what it is. Tommy's obsessed with Haribo. He's never seen a whole store before. About to go wild inside. I've never seen one this big before. You can buy in bulk and you get free samples. Full of marshmallow candies. Mom I'm embarrassed. Sammy's too embarrassed to be holding the camera even. You buy one box you get the next one 30% off. So we're buying at least two. Get out. Well it definitely feels like we're in the old town now doesn't it? Oh yeah. I love it. And now it feels like we're officially back in Europe. Like the old town small cobblestone streets. We can pop into a cafe and have a little espresso. That's a good idea. So Leon is full of those like secret hidden passageways. I think they're called like travules or travules. I don't really know how to pronounce it. But anyway the old silk workers that used to use them to transport goods quickly or to get down to the rivers on each side of the old town faster rather than like winding through the old town streets. So yeah that was our first one. It was like a pink rose courtyard with like a spiral staircase. Very pretty. I think I have one more on my list that we're gonna go find before we head up to one of the churches. I say we kind of work off that wine. Did not realize it was this steep to get up here. I think there's a funicular you can take though right? But we're already we're committed. You snorkeling? I like 20 extra minutes. Oh stop with me. I'm gonna stop. You're a sweater. You're water. And candy. A little more cardio. My god finally. Good workout right? That was such a good workout. So is the hike up worth it for you? Yeah these are amazing views over the city. You can see that big old square. We're gonna walk over there later. And then the church too. You can see everything. It's so pretty. I think we're staying up on the hill over there. Yeah on the peninsula. It's very beautiful. Earlier after we went to Pralas, the Praluline place, we stopped into this chocolatier shop. This is the name of it right here. Fancy shop. It was a very fancy shop. We picked up these croissants de Lyon. I don't know if I said that right but the wine's making me brave. And they're like little cushion chocolates. And they're a specialty of Lyon. So basically they're in the shape of these little cushions. It's chocolate ganache, marzipan, which I think is blanched almonds in a paste. And then they have a curacao liqueur in the chocolate. So that's interesting. I've never had anything like that. I don't even know if I've ever tried marzipan before. The lady who worked there was so sweet too. She described everything to us. Gave us the history of these chocolates. How they started. Yeah she gave us a story too. I'll put the story. We'll take a picture of the story and put it up on the screen. And you can pause it and read it if you want to know the history of the cushions. Let's give it a try. Kind of looks like it should be minty but I know it's not going to be. That's lush. That's so like silky and chocolatey. The marzipan has like a little bit of a like a gritty sugary texture. And then you can get that little hint of liqueur flavor at the end. These are pretty good. They're so like fancy looking. I feel fancy munching on these. Very rich. I can only have a couple of these. You can see why they only sell them in boxes of three. Delicious though. So on our first few days here, I noticed a ton of small like cinema signs. There are like very small movie theaters here. Which reminds me that Leon was actually the birthplace of cinema. The very first short film was shot here just like a minute long back in 1895 of workers leaving a factory. I thought that was uh very interesting. I forgot to say earlier after Tommy and I scarfed down that praline, we went back in the shop and bought another one so we could have it for breakfast tomorrow morning. So I've been carrying around this bag with this big huge praline in it all day. So we can have one for tomorrow. Well we have come to a traditional bouchon here in the old town. So it's just a typical restaurant where you can order traditional lyonnaise food. We have a couple more dishes we want to try to round off our day. We actually had reservations not until seven. Okay yeah I didn't know. But we're American and we eat so much earlier than that and we're tired we'll have to wait another two hours. Nope and we found someplace that's open. Yeah I didn't know if we were going to tell that story. We're cancelling our late dinner reservations and we just came to the first place that was open. I'm so glad we came here. The lady is so sweet and she's been helping us with figuring out what we want to order. Our traditional lyonnaise dishes. Yeah I think we got it sorted. Cheers. And we both got local wines, different ones. Mine's good. Mine's good too. I want to try yours. Mine's kind of fruity. Yours is more expensive so it tastes two euros more expensive. She's better. I always win the wine contest. I want to win the cheapest. So to start off we're getting the salad de lyonnaise. It has lettuce, some crispy bacon, poached egg which is interesting, crispy croutons, some purple onions. How amazing does that look? All right we're going to share this for our appetizer first. The bacon is actually like super thick cut ham. Great flavor though. Super juicy and the croutons are also humongous, super crunchy. It's a great salad. For our main we have ordered the canal which is a pike souffle. So it's like pike mixed with like a semolina flour kind of like a dough and they bake it in the oven and it's baked with like a crustacean cream sauce. It's another traditional lyonnaise dish and it's served with a salad and some rice. It smells divine. I'm excited to try this. It's very different and unique. You can definitely smell like the crustacean sauce. It smells like lobster to me. Yeah it does. It does. That is so so so delicious. Oh my gosh. It definitely has like undertones of like a lobster taste to it in that sauce. It's like a pillowy flour with a slightly, no fishy taste but then the lobster cream sauce. It is very good. Such a great day in Lyon. So excited to be back in France. I feel like out of all the places we've been in France, Lyon has been the most welcoming. Everybody today was so friendly. So many people let Tommy take their photos. Such a great day exploring the city. So many good foods and yeah we're just really excited to be back in France and thanks for watching coming along with us and we'll see you guys in Paris. Did you hear? Oh god it's still on. My phone's on flash like an old person. Oh my god turn it off. It's like I've never done this before. It's so nice to see cities at night. I know. Tammy's bedtime. She has to be home at least at seven o'clock so we never get to be out at night. We're hardly ever out at night because I wonder why that is. I'm early to bed but it's very, the atmosphere is very nice. Soak it in. Who knows when I'll let you come back and go out again.