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After a good (albeit short) night's rest, we woke up and rolled our bags through the streets of Geneva for about 6 minutes over to the train station. Our first leg would be to Lyon, which would take about 2 hours. Then a 5 hour wait for our next train, which would take another 5 hours to reach Barcelona that evening.
The train left Geneva on time, stopping a few times. It toddled along until we got close to Lyon, when it got up to about 100 mph. We arrived in Lyon at 9:22am. Now we had 5 hours to kill before the train to Barcelona. First, we dropped off our luggage at a place in the terminal, planning to pick it up in 4 hours or so. We stopped at a Starbucks, then went to find a bathroom. There had been a long line earlier, but now it was empty. However we found out you have to pay 1 euro to use the toilet. First time I’ve ever seen that before. I wonder what prompted that fee (we paid it anyway, of course).
Lyon train station
We walked around, but what we saw of the city was a bit depressing. Graffiti everywhere, it looked run-down. There was a lot of construction going on, with an artist's rendering of what Nelson Mandela park will look like when it’s done. But for now it was all fenced off.
Streets of Lyon
We walked past a random sculpture we found on Google Maps. Then we went to a Japanese restaurant (Nakata) for an early lunch. It was good and cheap!
La Belle et la Bête sculpture by Charles Semser
Salmon at Nakata restaurant
After lunch we wandered through the gigantic Westfield mall. Pretty similar to any mall you’d see in America. Except it was massive. We found a waiting room to sit in before finally retrieving our bags. They didn’t show our train’s platform until about 25 minutes before departure.
The train to Barcelona was much nicer. It also traveled up to about 175 mph. We were supposed to see the Sagrada Familia today, but that wasn’t going to happen (our tour was 4pm, and we wouldn’t arrive until after 7pm). So we may never see the unfinished church. If we ever return, it may be finished already. At least so they say. It's
been under construction for over 140 years, though it's supposed to be done 2 years from now.
While we were on the train, I was reminded that not everything goes as planned. Our JMT trip may have been an exception, where everything went amazingly according to plan. On this trip, weather forced us (or at least encouraged us) to modify our plans. And our return flight to Barcelona was cancelled. But we reacted the best we could. The reason this came to mind is that a woman on our train apparently lost (or maybe it was stolen) her passport and some money as well. Losing your passport in a foreign country sounds like no fun. Also, she was
sort of freaking out, her kids doing their best to calm her down.
We got into Barcelona around 7:30pm, then took a short taxi ride to our hotel. After cleaning up, we went to dinner at the same restaurant (Vinitus) we'd been to the first night. Still good.
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