Advice: Things to Do in Lyon pt. 1

I remember hearing someone tell me last year:  There's never anything to do in Lyon.  It's so boring.

Well.  Poppycock.  I came across a few different papers with a buttload of completely free and interesting things to see and do, and so I will share this right now:


#1)  491:  Newspaper of the culture and things in LyonThis is a monthly paper that comes out that has about 4 pages of agenda and things to do, about 60% of these things are absolutely free.  And example is:

Classical Music (Free)
September 19th @ 2pm
Auditorium Garibaldi in 3ème

149 Rue Garibaldi

69003 Lyon, France
Music of Mozart, Gershwin... etc

 The paper is filled with different festivals, music presentations, "plays in the grass" and otherwise free and interesting things to see.


#2) A Nous Lyon
Kinda reminds me of the Willamette Weekly in Portland, Oregon, except it's monthly.  Free things to do as well as movie reviews, places to visit and the best places to shop.  Available to download as a PDF on their website.

#3) English Movies (movies in original state)
Pathé Cinémas in Bellecour offers the ability to see American movies in their original versions.  On the website look out for things like "VOST" next to the name of the film.  This stands for "Version Originale, Sous-Titres" or original version with sub titles.  If you miss home or really wanna see an english speaking film, that's the place to go.
Note: Pathé Bellecour is currently renovating, so morning showings are currently out during the week.  Nightly showings and all day weekend showings are still going.

#4) Go Exploring
Sometimes, as I know, it's really freaky to wander off in Lyon all alone... but sometimes getting lost finds you the best treasures.  Yesterday we took off on a long hike around and we found some interesting stuff, I marked it on my Visit Lyon map in Googlemaps...

View Visit Lyon in a larger map

The wall we ended up finding was pretty much the old city limits.  Very cool.  There's a beautiful park that has the same view as Fourvière except 10x less people.  Pack a crispy baguette, some cheese and a cool beer and hike to the top.  It's worth the mini hike and picnic.. as you can see from the crappy Blackberry picture I snapped at the top before descending the stairs.

#5)  Join a Class for Dancing or Sports
I thought that joining a gym would be expensive- well it totally is way too expensive.  Fortunately I found out there is a place called "MJC:  Jean Macé"  in the 7ème that offers "seasonal sport classes" for €185 euro.  One season lasts from September 2010 to June 2011, with some mini breaks in between.  They also offer things for children, music, artsy stuff and dance.  The break down is about €20 euro a month for a weekly lesson... not too bad.

#6)  Check out the Biblotheque
€6.00 (for students, reading materials only), gets you the ability to use any of their books and take some fascinating things home.  Not only will it améliorate your français, but it will allow you to read in English too!  They have English (British and American) books in their bibliotheques, the easiest to find them is the Part-Dieu municipale bibliothèque.  I could spend hours in the library... which reminds me.. I have some books to return... :)



For now those are the things that I can think of, I'll add more as it comes to me.  Until then, enjoy and try to have fun in Lyon!

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