Eli tours Lyon

Eli decided to wake up early today. Ally and I wanted to nip this in the bud, so we arranged a quiet day with plenty of naptime.

For the morning, Vic and Candie took him to a playground on Île Barbe. I don't think I've mentioned that place before. It's a little island in the Saône a little north of our apartment. The name means "Wild Island," from Lat. insula barbara. I feel like there should be pirates, but so far there is no trace of any. Instead, there's a monastery and a bunch of fancy inns and restaurants. Vic and Candie have decided there is some sort of secret intelligence facility on the island, though. I probably shouldn't have put that on the internet in case they are right.

They brought Eli home for lunch and a nap, which he seemed very happy to have. Then we all set off for the Presqu'île. My father and I went to the SNCF Boutique on Place Bellecour, where we did not quite have all our customer service needs attended to. Eli and Candie played in the Place while we transacted our business.

Then we walked south to meet Ally. She showed us around her old neighborhood, Ainay. We walked over the Saône to the touristy part of Vieux Lyon. There we looked at souvenir shops, bought more macarons, and had dinner. (Touristy neighborhood means more non-stop restaurants.) We chose a crêperie and ended up with a pretty good meal. Eli ate a little of our meals, particularly Ally's galette bolognaise. (Don't think about it too hard.) For dessert he had some crepe and an orange slice. He loves oranges. I gave him a lemon slice, which he did not like as much.

Even though we had dessert at the restaurant, I could not keep myself from stopping at Nardone, the good ice cream shop in Vieux, and getting a scoop of thyme. Ally was able to guess the flavor from tasting it. We were worried about having to wait for the bus, since there's about thirty minutes between buses at night, but it came just a few minutes after we arrived at the stop. All things considered, it was a very nice evening, and Eli made it perfect by going right to sleep at bedtime. We hope we've got his sleeping back on track.