I'm back on the road, or rather on the train tracks (to Lyon) and pavements. I visited Lyon briefly a long time ago but don't remember it so it's tourist time: meandering round the old town, getting the funicular up to Fourvière to see the overwrought basilica, enjoying the view over Lyon rather more (main blip and extra 1), visiting an exhibition of reclaimed-glass sculptures by Marcoville then wandering round some of the Roman ruins...

I crossed the Saône to Place des Terreaux and rested my feet by its grandiose fountain for a while. It turned out to be a great place to slow down as I spotted a map on one wall showing a walking route up the Croix-Rousse hill where Lyon's silk-weaving industry used to be. I was glad I'd taken a photo of the map as it was an extraordinary and intricate route into courtyards I'd have otherwise thought were simply dwellings but which turned out to be linked to other courtyards and have a way out the other side to the next set of steps up the hill (extra 2). Steep and hard-going, especially at 30C, but it was a side of Lyon I could easily have missed. At the top I went to see Le Mur des Canuts, a vast trompe-l'oeuil mural (extra 3 - everything in this image is flat, including the shops), which reminded me of the smaller one I saw in Montpellier last time I was in France.

It was getting dark and my feet had had enough. By the time I'd got buses back to as close to my room as I could it was properly dark. Autumn is coming.


Only 6km/4miles today but it felt an awful lot more than that - probably because so much of it was uphill.