exercising abroad - Lyon style

How to get those in between meal times filled with more than culture and shopping?  Well, there's walking, hours and hours of it, briskly along long broad shopping avenues, and slowly along busy bridges that criss cross this city, spanning its two rivers: Le Rhone and La Soane.  There is also wandering along and through the city's 'traboules', which are ancient shortcuts through buildings that aided the silk weavers in getting from here to there more quickly.  Of course in modern times, you spend far more time trying to find the entrances of thethings, and then more time backtracking becuase the end of the traboule has been shut, these being buildings that are people's residences.

There is also a peculiar hobbling style of exercise called 'the cobblestone hobble'.  The old city ('vieux ville') is old indead, and if one is in heels or even flip flops there is the danger of slipping in between the large cobbles that rise and fall along the narrow lanes.  I suggest a form of footwear called the flat-soled shoe for this.  These are also recommended for those tackling Croix Rousse climb and the Fourviere shuffle, as these hills are not as gentle and incline as they look from a distance.

Another fine form of physical exertion is on bikes, of which there are many dotted around in bunches.  For 1 euro it is possible to rent a bike for as much of 24 hours, but this is not recommended as it is too long and interval without food.  The brilliance of this is that your purchase ticket allows you to ride for 30 minutes, within which time you must return it at another bicycle collection point. You may then re-rent it or get another bike using the same ticket for anotehr 30 minutes. This seems to allow the rental of bikes in the most democratic of methods.

My personal favourite is to sit somewhere and let the body slowly digest itself, the inner engine working while the outer shell remains in a calm state which can be described as laziness but I prefer to call meditative introspection and body renewal.