We've driven around Lyon so many times and never seemed to have the time to stop.

Lyon was a place we saw from afar, cursed the traffic jams on the ring road and yet always said we would visit Lyon for its many restaruants, old town, museums and history.

We took a quick trip leaving Paris Friday at 17:00 arriving at 19:00 in Lyon on the TGV.

I had a full day to explore Lyon taking in the old town, the Fine Arts Museum (Musée des Beaux-Arts), the Ateliers de Soierie Vivante - a small working museum for silk weaving.

We enjoyed a lovely dinner, just a 10-minute stroll from our hotel Friday night.

From 9 to 10 on a Saturday morning in February, I wandered the cobblestone streets of le vieux Lyon with nary a person in sight. It really did feel like another era.

I dared to push the button on doors that open to the passageways called traboules. I'd read in my guide books about traboules but I wasn't quite sure what it meant... until I walked through these 'Casbah' like narrow covered ways that are shortcuts from one street to the next. They are like a secret paths amongst the apartment buildings.

They seem very 'Harry Potterish' in a French way to me!

There are other museums I'd like to see on a return trip and take a boat trip on the rivers. Both the Saône and the Rhône rivers run through Lyon and they are impressive.

Then we had lunch in the center of town at Le Petit Léon for a hearty meal before the afternoon sightseeing and our return to Paris - in 1st class this time on the TGV.

Much too short of a visit. We'll be back again to see more of Lyon and the region.