Vieux Lyon

A year or so ago I wandered into a travel store and asked to be directed to books about France. The saleslady was delighted to escort me to an entire bookcase full of guides, cookbooks, and novels set in Europe. But the books about France were limited to those about Paris. And though there are some outstanding books about Paris, and Paris always has been and will be one of my favorite cities in the world, its dominance of the travel store’s bookshelves made me wonder whether the rest of France might be one of Europe’s best-kept secrets.

I just returned to the U.S. from a visit to Lyon and several other French cities. But these days, Lyon is what’s top-of-mind for me because it’s where I’ll be setting my next mystery novel. So let’s begin my homage to France’s third largest city (after Paris and Marseille), which I tend to think of as a smaller version of Paris because it has all the charm of Paris without all the hustle and bustle.

What I love most about Lyon is the preservation of its history, which dates all the way back to its founding in 43 BC as an Ancient Roman settlement called Lugdunum. During the Renaissance, its development grew along with the silk trade. Lyon’s Old Town is not only a UNESCO World Heritage site, but it’s also the largest Renaissance district in the world after Florence, Italy.

Lyon is teeming with museums, promenades, stunning architecture, ornamental parks, bridges spanning its two rivers (the Rhone and the Saone), festivals galore (including a Festival of Lights each December and a festival of crime fiction each April), and of course, food. It’s often referred to as France’s capital of gastronomy so no visit would be complete without a meal at one of its famous bouchons. Bouchons are where silk workers used to “restore” their energy (hence the etymology of the work restaurant). And if you like meat and meat by-products, then a bouchon is a meat-eater’s paradise. This visit, I followed in the footsteps of celebu-chef Anthony Bourdain and dined at Café Comptoir Abel, one of Lyon’s most authentic bourgeois bistros.

There’s typically no better deal at a French bistro than the formule that serves up a two- or three-course meal as an affordable alternative to ordering à la carte. So, not being much of a carnivore, I decided to start with something light, like a Salade Lyonnaise. How naive I was! There’s nothing “light” about this salad because a bed of crispy greens is almost smothered under a mountain of bacon, croutons, and at least one egg. But it made me realize that there’s more to bouchons than just meat and heavy cream sauces.

To see just why silk workers, called canuts, needed so much sustenance, it’s worth visiting one of the city’s many silk ateliers and La Maison Des Canuts in particular. It’s where you can see a demonstration of the famous Jacquard loom that automated the intricate process of reproducing patterns. It’s also where you can shop for beautiful silk scarves (though there’s no shortage of places to shop for silk, including the boutique of my favorite silk designer, Sophie Guyot).

If you’re wondering what else Lyon has to offer, you’re sure to find it on the city’s tourism website. In addition to an impressive array of guided tours about everything from Lyonnais cuisine to the city’s hidden mysteries, you can request a specialized tour from a City Greeter. City Greeters are volunteers who are fiercely proud of their city and eager to share their knowledge for free. I requested a tour of Lyon’s secret passages and was treated to a morning with a retired Philosophy professor who guided me through the Croix-Rousse district. In its heyday, the Croix-Rousse was home to silk weavers who carried their woven silk through these passages to riverside traders to avoid exposing it to the elements. And it’s these same passages where the WW II Resistance used to meet in secret to elude their would-be captors.

*La Cour des Voraces*, a *traboule* in the Croix-Rousse

Upon leaving Lyon, I took the train to Versailles, where another City Greeter was waiting to show me some of its hidden gems. What many tourists don’t know is that there’s more to Versailles than just a chateau. But more about Versailles in a future blog post. For now let me just reiterate that, to quote Rick Blaine in Casablanca, we’ll always have Paris. So why not head east and explore the wonders of Lyon?

To help inspire you, here’s a smattering of articles and blog posts that, imho, do the city justice:

48 Hours In: Lyon
This article on The Independent website offers handy-dandy travel essentials, an overview of the city, and a two-day itinerary with advice on where to stay and where to eat. Two travel essentials it doesn’t mention are: (1) Lyon is only two hours from Paris via TGV; and (2) within Lyon, you can get around by metro, bus, tram, or Uber.
An introduction to Lyon, France (in photos!)
I don’t know Anna, the author of the Slightly Astray blog. But boy, does she post some magnificent photos of Lyon. Evidently, she’s an Anthony Bourdain fan too.
What to do in Lyon – besides eat
I don’t know Carol Perehudoff, author of the Wandering Carol luxury travel blog, either. But she has done a fine job of mapping out a food-free itinerary of Lyon, complete with historical factoids, practical information, and a link to her foodie blog.
My best Lyonnais blogs and all about Lyon. So this is how I discover Lyon!
Aga, a Polish woman who blogs as “jadorelyon,” has assembled an entertaining list of her favorite blogs that you’ll find useful to research a visit that suits your needs— for instance, if you’re on a budget, you’re traveling with kids, you’re a beer lover, you speak French, you don’t speak French, etc.

Thanks this week go to the federation of City Greeters who need only 48 hours’ notice to organize the visit you request and who offer this service for free. Special thanks to Paul Moreau, the City Greeter who led me through the traboules and hidden gardens of Lyon. Merci pour une belle balade, Paul!

It’s about one month into the second quarter of the Certificate in Private Investigation program at the University of Washington, and we’re finally addressing the topic of uncovering the truth. Here’s a brief recap of what we learned in the first quarter (called Private Investigation & the Law) with respect to law and order:

The truth has no bearing on a trial. The burden of proof is on the prosecution to prove the elements of its case beyond a reasonable doubt. The job of the defense is to cast doubt on one or more of those elements, and thus compel a jury to render a verdict of Not Guilty.
The defendant’s job is to let his or her attorney do their job. The “what really happened” story is of no consequence and could very well remain a mystery during a trial and long after it ends.
The police investigate crimes on behalf of the prosecution. They stop investigating when they think they’ve found what they were looking for.
Private investigators, if they’re involved at all, typically work for the defense.

So whose job is it to uncover the truth?

You could argue that it’s the job of the private investigator. Private investigators tend to pick up where the police leave off. An example I often use to illustrate the role of the PI is this: let’s say the police stumble upon the body of a man with a bullet hole in his forehead. It would be easy to conclude that he died of the gunshot wound. So off they go in search of a smoking gun. And when they find one, case closed. Open and shut case, right?

Not so fast! What if the medical examiner later determines that the victim actually died of poisoning and the gunshot covered up that fact? If the defense attorney had in inkling that his client shot a dead man, he would have already dispatched a private investigator to collect evidence that his client is not guilty (which, by the way, is not the same as saying he’s innocent). If the PI is skilled enough or lucky enough (after all, by this time, the crime scene is most likely hopelessly contaminated) to find the poison that killed the shooting victim, it could throw the prosecution’s entire case into question.

In this second quarter (called Criminal Investigation & Investigative Techniques) of the PI program, we’re learning that the PI’s job is to find every fact that can be found and turn it over to the defense. End of story. But is it a satisfying story? Our instructor stressed from our first class that a critical trait of a successful PI is to withhold judgment about whodunit. Our job is to keep our eyes and ears open, get a clear accounting of exactly what happened and when (using the riveting investigative techniques she’s teaching us), and resist trying to reach a conclusion. The minute we head down that slippery slope, we’ve introduced bias into the process. Fitting together the puzzle pieces is the defense attorney’s job. And once we turn over the evidence to him or her, we wash our hands of the case and move onto the next one.

So again, whose job is it to uncover the truth? The answer, as counterintuitive as it may sound, is: no one’s. Which is why writing stories about an amateur sleuth is so deeply satisfying.

I recently shared the outline for my next novel, set in Lyon, with my editor. Lyon is a stunningly pretty city whose sizable Old Town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In fact, I’m told that Vieux Lyon is the world’s largest Renaissance quarter after Florence, Italy. You can practically feel the shroud of history settle on your shoulders as you wind through its uneven streets and dark alleys, and at night it’s easy to imagine a sinister individual lurking just beyond the light of a street lamp.

When I told my editor that my plan is to incorporate the tone of the Old Town into the mystery that my amateur sleuth will become embroiled in, she advised me to infuse lightness into the story. So Maxime Martin, my protagonist, will be the light that chases away the shadows of lies and cover-ups.

Which called to mind ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes, who abandoned the life of a banker to make his living as a beggar, slept in a wine barrel, and carried a lamp to light his way to an honest man. Exactly why he was looking for an honest man isn’t clear. (Some claim he was mad, others claim he was trying to prove that good manners are a disguise for dishonest living, and still others claim that the quote attributed to him was mistakenly translated and that he was “looking for a human.”) Whatever the answer, the image of Diogenes is the closest parallel I’ve found to an amateur sleuth. Far be it for me to answer the question, “Why is the truth important?” (beyond the simple fact that humans are meaning-making machines). But I can tell you that if, like me, you’re frustrated by the sober reality that it’s no one’s job in our justice system to uncover the truth, then there are hours upon hours of satisfaction to be found in reading about a protagonist who volunteers for that job.

Thanks this week go to Denise Scaffidi, my instructor this quarter at the UW, who is unknowingly equipping my protagonist with the critical tools he’ll need to find a killer in Lyon. Which leaves just one thing he’ll need to provide: his own lamp.

There’s More to France Than Just Paris

Sleuthing One’s Way to the Truth