Allee Camping International – 16 Euros all inclusive

As much as we are trying to avoid big cities we felt that we had to stop in Lyon as we have heard so much about it. The campsite is about 9 km outside Lyon and well connected in so far as buses and metro, but we were advised that the roads are a little busy to risk cycling into the centre.

The campsite is fairly large and well equipped but it is in an industrial area so traffic noise starts quite early, however it suited the purpose for a couple of nights enabling us to see the city.

Lyon is a large but beautiful city with the Rhone and the Saone rivers running through the middle segmenting the city into fairly well defined areas – Old City, The ‘Almost Island’ (as it feels like an island in the middle of the rivers, but isn’t), and the Red Cross ( or The working Hill as it used to be known).  We hadn’t really expected it to be quite so hilly, but we were quite glad that we hadn’t cycled in at the end of the day having walked 29 kilometers to cover the city!

There is an impressive Basilica that sits on top of the hill and looks down over the city and lots of lovely streets full of boutiques and restaurants and one of the most impressive indoor food markets that we have walked around – all in all an interesting city.