Day 69,  Sunday, November 5, 2023

We are going to visit the Lyon Zoo today.  We haven’t been to a zoo yet this trip and I love zoos.  I’m not sure what this one will be like as it is free.  Usually zoos are quite expensive…it takes a lot of money to take care of all those animals.

These beautiful Passion flowers covered a wall right beside our bus stop.

We find an outdoor market on our way to the indoor Lyon market. This is the first time we have seen the produce arranged in these metal bowls.  Only 2€ for a big bowl of lemons or tomatoes.  We bought a bowl of plums for 2€…they were good but it did add a couple pounds to Bob’s backpack for the rest of the day!

There are a lot of people shopping today.  The prices are very reasonable and the produce looks amazing.

This pedestrian street lead us to Les Halles de Lyon,…the indoor market.

I thought this was an interesting combination of buildings…old and new.

Inside there are many types of poultry, all with heads still attached.  This is so that it is easy to tell what type of bird you are purchasing. Apparently in “old times” people were being sold “this meat” as “that meat”, not getting what they paid for… so butchers were told to start leaving the heads/feathers/feet on birds they sell so that customers will know exactly what they’re buying.  This is still in practice today.  The spotted birds are guinea fowl and the brown gathered birds are pheasants!

We grow peas in our garden and shell huge bowls full when we harvest.  I never thought about how much it would cost to buy shelled peas…almost $60.00 a kg!

But that doesn’t even come close to the price of truffles!  WOW!!  That is over $2000 a kg!

French pastries are getting expensive too.  I sure notice the difference from when I was here nine years ago.  The big raspberry one is €59.90….or $86.00!  

Even these little pastries are 8.90€ each.

These micro macarons are the cutest, tiniest I have ever seen.  They are the size of a nickel…barely a mouthful!

The candied fruits look delicious.  I think we will have to try some before we leave France.

I have no idea how they make whole candied fruits?

I had to laugh at these monkey lamps!  I didn’t notice our reflections until I was editing photos for this post.

We arrive at the park and find a bench for our lunch and realize that we are in the zoo already.  The deer enclosure is huge with lots of grass and trees.  No fence, just a ditch to keep the animals in.  So far I am impressed.

The flamingos are always fun and they can be very noisy!

This is an old bear cage from many years ago.  It is left to show how zoos have improved the way animals are housed today.  I am so very glad that they are no longer in use…it is terrible to think of a bear living in here its entire life.

This Watusi, or Ankole cow shared an enclosure with the giraffes.

I love giraffes, and there are four beautiful ones in this zoo, including this young one.

They are just as interesting looking coming…

as they are going!

They have impossible necks that simply do not look strong enough to hold up their heads!  An interesting giraffe fact, they have seven vertebrae in their necks …exactly the same number of vertebrae as we have!

I don’t know the name of this cute little bird, but it ran around on the ground and it didn’t mind being close to people, even when some children tried to pet it.

One more flamingo photo…loved their reflections in the water.

The pelicans are amazing and their fathers have hints of pink and yellow.

The zoo has over 300 animals in 66 species.  We also saw many other animals including leopards, monkeys, and gibbons, but they weren’t in the mood to pose for photos!  The whole zoo is very well maintained, the animals look in great condition and their enclosures were clean and spacious with lots of trees, shrubs and grasses…it is all funded by the city of Lyon. We were very impressed.  It is a small zoo but just right for an afternoon visit.  

There is a play area for kids and we had fun watching children try their hand at harness racing…with reins that actually worked to steer their horses.  Then it looked like it was going to rain again, so we head of home. There was a downpour when we first arrived but we found shelter under the roof at a puppet theatre so we stayed dry.

Our metro station on the way home is not busy at all.

When we get home this notice is on the door to the building. The bedbug sniffer dogs are arriving tomorrow morning to check out nine apartments and returning on the 30th to recheck another 6 apartments.  There are 34 apartments in this building and looks like 14 of them have bedbug problems.  So far so good, there is no sign of them in our apartment….but I think it is a good thing we are leaving tomorrow morning