[/caption]Michael Cosgrove – Summer holidays offer the prospect of peace and relaxation after a grinding first six months of the year, and many people spend a good deal of money on them. But my holidays are free this year, they are going to last six weeks, and here’s why.
I have lived in Lyon France for almost fifteen years now and have come to appreciate its beauty, its elegance and its genteel – almost provincial – ways. I have spent a year elsewhere every few years though, and the last time that happened was five years ago, when I went to live in Bordeaux for a while to help a friend start up her business there.
After six months I came back up to Lyon alone to spend a weekend with a friend and I distinctly remember rolling into town after a seven-hour drive, looking at the red roofs and proud 18th century facades as they came into view, and saying aloud “I love this town. It’s my town.” My town? It was at that moment that I decided to finish up what I was doing down south as soon as possible and get back to Lyon. I’d never ‘missed’ a town before apart from my hometown, but there’s a first time for everything.
It was great to get back to Lyon, and I have been very happy here since, although as Lyon is a big city - at least by French standards - there are moments when the sheer number of cars in the streets, the noise, the crowds of people not only downtown but elsewhere, the packed subway trains and buses and the stress that that inevitably causes means that I sometimes need a holiday.
So, like everyone else, I have gone on holiday for two or three weeks each summer, mainly to other countries. But holidays can be tiring too, particularly if you visit major cities or capital cities in other countries, and I would sometimes get back from them almost as tired as I had been when I left.
But things are different this year because for various reasons related to work and my family I have not been able to leave Lyon for a real holiday. So here I am, in Lyon, watching the city slowly empty itself of people, the hundreds of thousands of people who are its lifeblood. Cars flood out of the city and head south towards the Mediterranean sun and the golden beaches that have made the French Riviera one of the most famous holiday spots in the world. The airport is busy flying planeload after planeload of people out to everywhere from Ibiza to India and from Chicago to China. It was a little disconcerting at first.
The city became unusually – almost strangely – quiet. It was difficult to get used to the silence at first. It was as if the birds, even though we don’t consciously listen to them most of the time, suddenly stopped singing. But I soon began to appreciate that this quieter version of Lyon was beckoning me to venture outside and explore it, so I did. This street is normally bustling with people, but not at the moment. I’m in a sort of ghost town, but I feel good in it. I'm on a staycation.
[caption id="attachment_7447" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Where did all the people go?"]
[/caption]Half of the shops and restaurants are shut in most areas of the city except downtown and St Jean, where tourists have taken over from the vanishing locals. Gone are the streams of cars, motorcycles and vans which usually roar past my apartment building each morning starting at 6AM, gone are the crowded buses and streets, and gone are the thousands of people who enjoy a walk or a bike ride down on the banks of the Rhône River, to be replaced by swans and ducks.
[caption id="attachment_7449" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="Swans and ducks take a siesta on the banks of Lyon's Rhône River"]
[/caption]I thought I knew Lyon like the back of my hand but I was wrong. Two weeks into the six-week period which will see Lyon working at a fraction of its capacity I am able to discover areas I know and love undisturbed and see them in a different light and in a more thoughtful manner. I can sit down in them and think. And look around me. I can cycle anywhere without having to breath in the exhaust fumes of thousands of cars and endure the clamor of revving engines and honking horns. My favorite streets and boulevards are welcoming by their relative emptiness and quiet.
[caption id="attachment_7450" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="This boulevard is normally choked with traffic"]
[/caption]It’s like being privileged in a way. Everything is suddenly within easy reach on my bike, and I always get a seat on subways and buses. Rush hours are almost non-existent. I was the only person on a bus recently when it pulled out of what is usually one of the biggest road/rail/bus/subway interchanges in Europe. I spoke to the driver for five minutes about the suspension used on buses, which wouldn’t be possible in normal circumstances.
Bad service has disappeared as shop, bar and restaurant staff relax as their workload falls. People get served more quickly and they have a chance to chat for a moment if they so wish. It’s easier to notice individuals, like this lady on her balcony, surrounded by mostly shuttered apartments. I would never have seen her three weeks ago, when many people were on the balconies in this particular building, sunning themselves and watching the activity in the street below.
Even the impossible is now a reality as far as the stars in the sky are concerned, as I can actually see them at night as pollution levels fall and less lighting is used in homes and offices.
Lyon is emptying, and its population is deserting it for crowded beaches, high prices and restaurants with queues to get in. But I remain one of the few lucky citizens of this city who are finally able to enjoy it to the full. It’s all there, every day, waiting quietly for me in the sun.
I am currently enjoying a truly relaxing six-week holiday. Other people’s holidays have emptied Lyon, and this really is “my town” for once.