Train travel spoils you. No need to get to the airport 2+ hours before your flight, no waiting in long security lines, no strict weight and size limits on your luggage. You arrive a bit before your train is scheduled to depart, stow your bags, find your seat and away you go!
Living in Paris spoils you too. You quickly learn that much of France and many parts of Europe are just a few hours from the city. (and escaping from time to time is good for le moral)

Feel like going to Amsterdam? No problem! Jump on a train and you'll be there in just over 3 hours. Want to taste some wine in Bordeaux? It's only 2½ hours away. Craving some bouillabaisse and time on the beach? You can be sitting in the sun in Marseille in a little over 3 hours.





And of course there's Lyon, a city that is considered paradise for the French food lover and a place that had both intrigued me and been recommended to me by several friends over the years. So last summer I hopped on the TGV and just 2 hours later was climbing up a steep flight of stairs in La Croix-Rousse neighborhood to meet up with old friends.




Lucy, a brilliant chef and owner of the cooking school, Plum Lyon, who I met in Gascony at Camp Cassoulet almost a decade ago, and Mardi, the writer of the fabulous food blog, eat. live. travel. write, who I met in Paris several years ago, were waiting at Lucy's house to welcome me. The first thing we did after I dropped off my bag was head to the covered food market, Les Halles de Lyon.




I instantly fell in love with this place, for the cheese alone! The quality of the food on offer was superb and the people working at the market were genuine and helpful. There was no snobbery here, just people selling products that they believed in and wanted to share with us. I noticed the same thing at the restaurants where we ate. The chefs were proud of their dishes, but they didn't do a great job for the recognition, they cooked amazing food because they are chefs, and that's what chefs do. The lack of pretension was so refreshing.




It was a whirlwind trip, and with Lucy and her family's help, we packed a lot of delicious food, cheese, wine, walking and laughter into 36 hours. But that's all the time it took to convince me; if you love French food, you can believe what they say about Lyon.
It is paradise!