Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK
MY FRANCE - LYON

TOURISM

Avoiding Irish pubs in France’s culinary capital

For the latest instalment in our My France series, author and freelance writer Samantha David tells The Local why Lyon, the country's culinary capital, is a great place to live if you have the money and can put up with young Erasmus students and Irish pubs.

Published: 19 April 2013 19:01 CEST
Avoiding Irish pubs in France's culinary capital
Le Palais Ideal de la Facteur, near Lyon (photo: Misterdi/flickr) Samantha David, and the Basilica Notre-Dame de Fourvière (Photo: Ana Rey)

How did you end up in France?

I came here 25 years ago to learn French and get a sun tan and never went home.

And why Lyon?

I was living in Montpellier but moved to Lyon so my daughter could go to the Cité Scolaire International, which is a state school but allows pupils to do a bilingual baccalaureate.  

Tell us more about Lyon.

It’s a wealthy city, very bourgeois. It’s a great city if you have money and it’s hard not to get a job here. At the weekend many locals go to their posh country houses out of town. Its location is one of the best things about Lyon. In a couple of hours, you can be in Italy, Marseille or Paris. There’s also an easyJet hub here with flights to all over Europe.

Does it deserve its title as the culinary capital of France?

Sort of. There are a whole bunch of fabulously expensive restaurants (many outside the centre) which I'm sure are divine but I've never eaten at those kind of prices (100 euros a menu type thing). But the cheap restaurants here are mostly awful.

Traditional Lyon food is heavy on the animal fat, the offal, the pigs' feet, and quenelles (slimey dumplings) and main flavours are salt and garlic. Also, service tends to be sloppy, slow and unfriendly and kitchens like to close at 10pm sharp. There are a few chains open until midnight, but absolutely nothing afterwards. Sunday nights most restaurants are closed. 

Where are the best places to hang out in Lyon?

I would go to the Café de la Rep, just off Rue de la Republique because it’s French, it has the football on and they sell fantastic salads until midnight. It’s relaxed and it has a great atmosphere. The place that I like to keep a secret is a bar called Look Bar on Rue Palais de la Justice. The owners have had it for about 50 years and it has not changed. They still play The Doors on vinyl and they sell killer cocktails. Just don’t go there on Friday or Saturday because it becomes overrun by students.

Where is the best place to go for a day trip?

You have to go to the Palais Ideal de Facteur Cheval near the town of Hautieres. Forget the Eiffel Tower or Cannes, this is the must-see place in France. It was built by a postman out of the stones he collected whilst doing his rounds over 40 years. At first people here just thought he was a nutter until people from abroad began saying how extraordinary he was.

The other place is Annecy. It’s a 12th century mini Venice. Why would you not want to go there? It’s stunning.

Where do you tend to avoid in Lyon?

All the Irish pubs. Visitors love the old town centre which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site but for me it’s a bit hackneyed. I am sick of all the Irish pubs there, you can’t get away from them. They are not really even Irish pubs. They are just a great place for Erasmus students or people who have never been to Ireland. They are just drinking factories for making money.

Lyon sounds overrun with students. Is it a good place to study?

There are a huge number of students here. But it depends where they are from. The Spanish ones will party anywhere, in the middle of a cabbage patch if they have to. But I think some of the British ones get bored here. It doesn’t have the clubs or the shops for those from big British cities.

Have you integrated into French life in Lyon?

Yeah, I think so. I speak fluent French and I have French nationality. I have a lot of French friends but I will always be a Londoner.

Samantha David's first novel "I Married a Pirate" was published in 2009. She has just finished her second novel "Blanche in Love" and is currently working on "In the Dog House".

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

TRAVEL NEWS

Why are fewer British tourists visiting Spain this year?

Almost 800,000 fewer UK holidaymakers have visited Spain in 2023 when compared to 2019. What’s behind this big drop?

Published: 23 August 2023 11:36 CEST
Updated: 26 August 2023 18:32 CEST
Why are fewer British tourists visiting Spain this year?

Spain welcomed 12.2 million UK tourists between January and July 2023, 6 percent less when compared to the same period in 2019, according to data released on Monday by Spanish tourism association Turespaña.

This represents a decrease of 793,260 British holidaymakers for Spain so far this year.

Conversely, the number of Italian (+8 percent), Irish (+15.3 percent), Portuguese (+24.8 percent), Dutch (+4 percent) and French tourists (+5 percent) visiting España in 2023 are all above the rates in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year. 

German holidaymakers are together with their British counterparts the two main nationalities showing less interest in coming to Spanish shores.

Britons still represent the biggest tourist group that comes to Spain, but it’s undergoing a slump, with another recent study by Caixabank Research suggesting numbers fell particularly in June 2023 (-12.5 percent of the usual rate). 

READ ALSO: Spain fully booked for summer despite most expensive holiday prices ever

So are some Britons falling out of love with Spain? Are there clear reasons why a holiday on the Spanish coast is on fewer British holiday itineraries?

According to Caixabank Research’s report, the main reasons are “the poor macroeconomic performance of the United Kingdom, the sharp rise in rates and the weakness of the pound”.

This is evidenced in the results of a survey by British market research company Savanta, which found that one in six Britons are not going on a summer holiday this year due to the UK’s cost-of-living crisis.

Practically everything, everywhere has become more expensive, and that includes holidays in Spain: hotel stays are up 44 percent, eating out is 13 percent pricier, and flights are 40 percent more on average. 

READ ALSO: How much more expensive is it to holiday in Spain this summer?

Caixabank stressed that another reason for the drop in British holidaymakers heading to Spain is that those who can afford a holiday abroad are choosing “more competitive markets” such as Turkey, Greece and Portugal. 

And there’s no doubt that the insufferably hot summer that Spain is having, with four heatwaves so far, has also dissuaded many holidaymakers from Blighty from overcooking in the Spanish sun. 

With headlines such as “This area of Spain could become too hot for tourists” or “tourists say it’s too hot to see any sights” featuring in the UK press, budding British holidaymakers are all too aware of the suffocating weather conditions Spain and other Mediterranean countries are enduring. 

Other UK outlets have urged travellers to try out the cooler Spanish north rather than the usual piping hot Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol destinations.

Another UK poll by InsureandGo found that 71 percent of the 2,000+ British respondents thought that parts of Europe such as Spain, Greece and Turkey will be too hot to visit over summer by 2027.

There’s further concern that the introduction in 2024 of the new (and delayed) ETIAS visa for non-EU visitors, which of course now also applies to UK nationals, could further compel British tourists to choose countries to holiday in rather than Spain.

READ MORE: Will British tourists need to pay for a visa waiver to enter Spain?

However, a drop in the number of British holidaymakers may not be all that bad for Spain, even though they did spend over €17 billion on their Spanish vacations in 2022. 

Towns, cities and islands across the country have been grappling with the problem of overtourism and the consequences it has on everything from quality of life for locals to rent prices. 

READ ALSO: ‘Beach closed’ – Fake signs put up in Spain’s Mallorca to dissuade tourists

The overcrowded nature of Spain’s beaches and most beautiful holiday hotspots appears to be one of the reasons why Germans are visiting Spain in far fewer numbers. A recent report in the country’s most read magazine Stern asked “if the dream is over” in their beloved Mallorca.

Spanish authorities are also seeking to overhaul the cheaper holiday package-driven model that dominates many resorts, which includes moving away from the boozy antics of young British and other European revellers.

Fewer tourists who spend more are what Spain is theoretically now looking for, and the rise in American, Japanese and European tourists other than Brits signify less of a dependence on the British market, one which tends to maintain the country’s tourism status quo for better or for worse.

SHOW COMMENTS