When we arrived in Lyon, it was rainy and cloudy.   Late autumn in Lyon looked a bit sad but still beautiful.   The streets were covered by the falling maple leaves.   Red, green and gold colors of the trees combined to make an attractive picture for the city of Lyon, especially when we got the view of the castle-like white Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière top on the background.

Our hotel Mercure Lyon Beaux-Arts was very well located in the long and narrow peninsula between Rhone and Saone river.   In Roman mythology, Mercure (same as Hermes in Greek mythology) is a god that protects commerce and traveler.  During our stay in Mercure for the 5 days, the hotel did provie us good protection with warm and confortable room.   From the balcony of my room, I could see the fountain on the Place des Jacobins, one of the most famous squares in Lyon, which belongs to the zone classified as World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Among these artists, I only knew Philibert Delorme (the man on the right with a cap in the above photo).  The first time that I encountered his name was in the introduction of Castle de Chenonceau, when I visited there 3 years ago.   He built a five-arched bridge over the River Cher to link the castle to the opposite bank.  Later Catherine de Medici added a wing to the castle on the bridge, so that the castle obtained the current look.

Not many of Philibert's projects remain today.   But in Lyon we can still see one of such precious projects ------ Galerie of Philibert Delorme in Hotel of Bullioud situated on 8 rue Juiverie.  It is a galerie that connects two buildings nicely.   Due to our tight schedule, we did not have chance to see this project.   But thanks for Internet, we could appreciate this galerie in the video of the following linkage.

http://www.vieux-lyon.org/claudedevignephoto/VV_AffGaleriePhilibert_VLO.htm

Gaspard Andre's another graceful design is the Théâtre des Célestins, which we were lucky enough to have a look on Thursday (Nov 11) night after dinner with Philippe Burnat.   That was a really interesting and amusing night.   Philippe took us to a warm and small restaurant in the street of Mercière.   Our neighbouring table sat a pretty young girl and her old grandmother.   The girl was eating a big pot of mussels and telling her grandma to use skype to call her instead of using telephone, so as to save money.    When they finished their dinner and were going to leave, the grandma said good-bye to Philippe politely and expressed a bit of her surprise to see that Herbert and I dare try the dish of frog legs, which had a lot of small bones.  Indeed the French frog had more bones than the Cantonese frog.   But that dish was really delicious.   I guessed because we need to continue to spit out the frog bones when we ate it, the French were afraid of trouble or losing their elegance, they dare not try this dish.   

The Théâtre des Célestins was not far from the restaurant.  It was a marvellous classical building, located in the zone of World Heritage site.   Wikipedia has its introduction and photo but not the photo as following.    At the moment we saw the theatre, it was still in its Halloween dress.   People printed some impressive ghost images on the membrane and dressed it to the theatre to create a haunted effect.  It was really fantastic!

It seems that Lyonnais is keen on dressing up or making up the buildings.  The Théâtre des Célestins is not the only one case.   On Friday afternoon, on the way to the Part-Dieu Railway station, when we passed the Avenue Lagasagne, the driving-lady specially slowed down the car for me and let me take the photos of the murals on the street.  She was really a very nice person. Although she could not speak Engligh, she was friendly and enthusiastic to introduce the French culture to the foreigners.   This series of mural described the history of the public transportation.   From the pictures, we could see the building, costume and vehicle in the old time.

More mural photos can be seen in the following linkage:
http://picasaweb.google.com/113087471085490026359/EuropeanMuralTour#

The following two murals were just near the mural of "the history of public transportation".  The theme of these murals was "Lyon, la sante, la vie" (Health and Life in Lyon).  It presented the portraits of some celebrities in medical field.

I imagined that if some day some painters or designers get the idea to paint the 5-meter long famous Chinese painting "Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival"  (http://www.qingmingriverside.hk/tc/) on the wall of the buildings in Hong Kong, then maybe we could offer our sign fabric B4733 to them, which is desgined for mural.