Four days in Lyon.

Walking cobbled streets, drinking coffee and judging croissants

I have been feeling very anxious, these past few weeks. We had a holiday booked that involved getting on a plane and it was inconveniently scheduled within a particularly busy period at work. I wasn’t looking forward to it at all and, given it was going to cost quite a lot of money and, frankly, I don’t need extra stress in my life right now, we cancelled the trip. T was kind—because he’s a kind person—but he (and I) needed to do something… to get out of our house and routine and be somewhere that felt full of life. That made us feel full of life.

So we got the train from Oxford, where I had been working all day, to London St Pancras. Once in the station and with only minutes to spare, T ran to Shake Shack for burgers and I went to Marks & Spencer for snacks and drinks, and then we met at security. We got the Eurostar to Paris, stayed overnight in an airless Ibis near Gare du Nord, and then woke the following morning to find coffee and pastries before our next train which would leave Gare Du Lyon just before midday.

The boulangerie I wanted to go to, and that we got off the Metro a stop early to find, had closed early because they’d sold out. Swallowing my disappointment we instead ordered a croissant and a pain au chocolat at the more traditional place a few doors down and coffee from a hipster cafe across the road. Let me tell you, the disappointments continued. The pastry was a little dry and not nearly buttery enough. The coffee was luke warm and weak. I spoke (to T, on a bench) for a good three minutes about how we have been cursed with exemplary baked goods in the UK. You don’t need to go to Paris for a good croissant.

Never ones to cry over dry pastry though, we found a cafe with seats facing out into the busy Paris street ahead and ordered strong coffees which we sipped in the morning sun. (I then got another croissant at Pret in the station which was much better).

Arriving into Lyon Perrache, the train crosses the bridge on the south side of the city. For miles, you can see the arches and towers of Gothic and Renaissance French architecture. It reminds me of Paris—grand apartment blocks and cathedrals towering over the blue river and trees everywhere, little pockets of green and pink.

It was gone 2.30pm and we find a completely deserted Italian restaurant to have lunch. The chef has to be radioed to come back upstairs to cook our pizza. I drink blood orange juice and eat my half of the pizza—hot, crispy and incredibly cheesy. I have that wonderful first-day-of-holiday feeling. Full of expectation and just excited to be somewhere new, somewhere you’ve never seen before.

For the next four days we walked the historic streets — grand boulevards where you can find designer handbags, H&M and Zara, and tiny alleys that smell a little like weed and boast cool cafes and places to buy vintage Levis. One particularly sunny morning we found a boulangerie with lots of tables outside and we order coffee and pastries and sit for an hour exclusively talking about how lovely it is to be on holiday, to be sitting here in this moment.

The city has two rivers, the Saône and the Rhône. The ‘island’ in the middle is flat and full of shops, galleries and restaurants. On the west side is the old town — the centre of the French resistance in the Second World War — and you can ride the funicular railway to the top of the hill where the Basilica watches over the rest of Lyon and the views are phenomenal. Near to our Airbnb in the north, is Croix-Rousse, which also towers over the city and it’s almost impossible to squeeze yourself onto a train to, as the alternative walk is so steep and unappealing. We had dinner there one evening and ate some of the best food we ever have — plates of perfectly balanced fresh flavours: bright green peas with ricotta, hot crispy polenta fries and pillowy, buttery gnocchi. The food in Lyon is amazing. There are, like London, too much options. On another evening we went to an American Italian restaurant that had just opened a couple of weeks previously and I ate — and I know this is a huge claim — a pizza that had the best base I have ever experienced. Those charred air bubbles…

As is always the case when you find yourself abroad and on holiday with entire days to fill with whatever your heart desires, you start to dream about how you could implement more of the holiday vibes into your normal life. How you can more seamlessly merge the two states, instead of desperately waiting for a few weeks a year to actually relax and properly enjoy yourself. Inevitably within hours of arriving, we start looking online for houses in the French countryside (“it needs some work, and a pool, but it’s remarkably reasonable!”). One near a village with a great pastry shop and somewhere to have a glass of wine in the evening.

We’re all on a constant search for the good life. It’s incredibly important, to not just get through life, but to actively want and enjoy it. I feel like I manage that a lot of the time but recently I’ve been struggling more with feelings of overwhelm and dissatisfaction. Not with my current life exactly — I’m incredibly lucky to mostly really like my life — but a dissatisfaction with the Western, capitalist sensibility I find so deeply problematic. That constant hustle to stand out, make more money, show your worth. As if the kind of worth we’re talking about is anything other that a fiction. Based on how anyone with a bit more power than you makes you feel.

I have no answers but I am on my own personal path to finding contentment, stability and happiness. To working out how that looks for me and my family, in our life.

Taking these little trips to places that make you feel alive — like your eyes are open — are so nourishing. I will never stop believing in how necessary it is to take the time to remind yourself what is most important to you.

Finally — my croissant experience improved hugely as the trip progressed. I’m pleased to report that France is still making some outrageously good pastries.