Meanwhile, Back at the Fortress of Solitude...

Montee du Gourgillon is one of the oldest streets in Lyon. Laid out by the Romans to connect the Saone river docks with the baths and amphitheatre on top of the hill, it was once lined with the villas of Roman traders. In later years the stones of these villas were re-purposed to build the Cathedral St. Jean. After a visit by Pope Clement V to the cathedral, his procession ascended Montee du Gourgillon, where crowds thronged onto makeshift bleachers that narrowed the narrow street further still. One of these bleachers collapsed as onlookers strained to touch His Holiness, killing a number of them and knocking the pope off his horse. The Primate (heh heh) was able to walk it off, but the crown he had been wearing lost a number of jewels including a large diamond. While walking down Montee du Gourgillon, one is still advised to keep an eye out for the Pope's diamond, just in case, y'know, it's just sitting in the gutter 800-odd years later. (some really nice photos, including Montee du Gourgillon, here... captions in French but you can probably work it out.)

The street was rebuilt along with the rest of Vieux-Lyon during the Renaissance, and many of these Renaissance houses still stand. Further up the hill, some wealthy landowners carved out small estates on the hillsides behind the high walls, building manor houses among small orchards. One of these former estates, the Clos Vendome, still stands, and in the corner of its walled garden, built out from two of the old walls and covered by a massive grapevine obscuring its tile roof, stands a gardener's cottage. Which is where I live.

It's not well insulated. There's no phone (I use my cell). There's no doorbell (ditto...call me 5 minutes before you get here and I'll meet you at the gatehouse [photo]). The "kitchen" belongs on a sailboat. It's damp, and overrun with spiders who were occupying the old stone walls long before I got here. All sorts of critters scurry over the roof tiles under the grapevine.

But for me, it's enough. I have a writing desk by the window with a view over the city, and my own private terrace outside [photo]. I have the neighbor's WiFi connection, and the landlord (who lives in the Big House) lets me use the swimming pool in the garden. He's a good guy, a jazz aficionado with a nice record collection and a grand piano in the salon (big Bill Evans fan; on weekend days I can hear "Waltz for Debby" coming up from the house) with a superb city view. He doesn't speak English but we sit in the garden and drink scotch and talk in French about jazz and books and Barack Obama (because all Europeans want to talk about Barack Obama).

And it's quiet here. Really quiet. Accustomed to the clamor of Rue de la Republique, I am deafened by the silence, broken only by the bells pealing from the cathedral and the birds chirping as they pull at the grapes hanging from the eaves outside my window [photo]. I'm living alone for the first time in my life, and I often turn on my little TV for company, or have long conversations with the cat (I have reservations about his macroeconomic theories on globalization).

In theory I should be able to get a lot done. I had hoped to make a lot of progress on the novel I've been "writing" in my head for a couple of years now, and I have drafted some of it, but in reality I still have to work and get groceries and go to the laundromat, and on weekends I try to get out of town or bike around as much as I can. That doesn't leave as much free time as I had anticipated, and often I come home after work too tired to do much of anything other than whip up some Zatarain's (with fresh andouille and crawfish tails) and watch old kungfu movies on videocassette or work slowly through my stack of French novels.

I'm not complaining. It's not a bad life. Just funny where life takes you, isn't it?