YDYtravelers: Museum of Confluences does not disappoint and in a shocking turn of events, I’m kicking my cold’s ass

After a night of sleep that ended in me waking to a full body sweat, I’m feeling much better today. Is that a thing? Do humans sweat out illness? Maybe it’s something I saw on TV, Little House on the Prairie or something, but I swear, night sweats, EmergenC, French cold medicine, not sure what, but dang it, I think I’m already on the mend. Contrast that to my last trip to Europe when my illness lasted a good three weeks and became a major plot point. Enough talk about sweating (but don’t forget to pre-order your Portuguese Sweat Towel (PST) (TM), in regular or pocket-size!)

The Museum of Confluences, my love. I think this was one of my favorite museums from our 2017 trip. The weather was exactly how it had been the day I visited two years ago. Windy, moody, grey with peeks of sun and fantastic cloud formations. And that was the perfect backdrop for this beauty of a structure. It’s all angles and curves, made in the 2010s, so all modern and unique. I took Mom down to the confluence, where the Rhone and the Saone rivers join. And again, as happened last time, swans were swimming along the Rhone side of the river. The strangeness of the confluence was still there (obviously - where would it go?), which is that there are railroad tracks that lead right into the water, as if there was some underwater train route in some distant past. It’s really striking and perhaps I should read more about it. That’s what I said in 2017, so I just took a break to translate (via Google) an article about the tracks from a French website, circa 2016:

“These rails were used at the time of the lock of the Mulatière lock in the 1950s. A workshop at the tip of the peninsula was used to store maintenance equipment. The rails carried wagons from the workshop to the dam. If they dive, it is because at the time, the water level was one meter lower thanks to the dam of Caluire-Ile Barbe. We can see it today: the red and green concrete blocks indicate to the boats that there is an obstacle at this place.The installation of the Pierre Bénite dam in 1966 led to the deconstruction of the Mulatière dam. And the disappearance of the Caluire-Ile Barbe dam has raised the water level at this point of the river. Today, the tip of the peninsula changes radically face with the land exit of the new district of Confluence: the factories have disappeared to make room for a modern urban space and design. Some vestiges of this time are discreetly preserved, like these rails.”

So there you have it. A dam replaced another dam and changed the water level at the confluence. The Google translation is a bit rough around the edges though, isn’t it?

The musuem itself was, as I expected, divine, what with the beautifully curated and displayed relics of the past, the bug collections, with all kinds of tiny pins and hand written descriptions, the fascinating descriptions and videos, all the magic that is this place. We saw a small exhibit on the tiny creatures that inhabit our world, such as flys, lice, ticks and mold. It was quite interesting and I enjoyed combing through the oversized hair display to find the urchins that can live there. Beats combing lice out of a 6 year-olds hair. Been there. Done that. More than once. Did you know that it would take one million mosquitos to drain the average human body of all it’s blood? Now you do. And, I was privileged to witness tiny fleas dressed up as people in one exhibit placed under a microscope. Why, humans, why?

The main rotating exhibit was about hats. Seems dull, right? Not. It was fascinating to see the variety of hats that have been created and worn around the world. Hats have been made for all kinds of occasions too, like, say, birth, coming of age, marriage, giving birth, and death. I didn’t see any retirement hats though. Maybe that should be my next product line after the PST (TM). The beauty and creativity of the headgear on display was ridiculous. Check out some of the photos below. You’ll only be sorry you didn’t get to try any of them on (and neither did I, sadly). Mom did set off the musuem alarm by reaching too close to one hat trying to snap a picture. I can’t take her anywhere.

Beetles were on display in the next room, and they were also very cool. And very tiny. Not many photos were captured of these guys, but I can tell you that seeing the stages of metamorphosis of some of them was hard to forget, especially right before lunch. Also, there was an entire section of the exhibit devoted to scarab beetles, which apparently are popular pets in Japan. One could buy a set up much like a hamster cage for their pet scarab beetle. There are whole stores devoted to the care and keeping of your beetle. New hobby? No.

Lunch. What can I say. We’ve been eating like we’re on vacation in France. Today, we dined in the musuem’s very high-end restaurant and it was good. I had this polenta with vegetables that had so much flavor and texture that I felt like I was a Top Chef judge describing the meal to my dining companions. They were both eating, apparently one of the best chicken dishes they’d ever laid their eyes (tongues?) on. Also, now I drink wine. In the daytime. How did that happen? I think I’ve had more alcohol during this trip than I’ve consumed in the past decade, so I’m getting pretty good at it. And dessert. The cake, that when translated, was called the Spell Cake. And it put a spell on all of us. And it came with a side of homemade ice cream that was just a bit sweet, like a dark dark chocolate. Jenny posted a picture of her bread choices at the Ault, Colorado supermarket yesterday, saddened by the vast difference between average American food as compared to European. It’s true. We accept mediocrity. That should be the slogan for the U.S.

Back to the musuem, our last exhibits were ones I’d seen in 2017. There’s a beautiful exhibit on death and the rituals and beliefs surrounding it. Also, there’s a large collection of natural history objects, from fossils and bones to meteorites to stuffed specimens that are part of the evolution exhibit. And finally, we checked out the human ingenuity exhibit, which housed such odd companions as a salad spinner and an atomizer. We invent, us humans. Sometimes it’s good. And lots of times it’s not.

Home again to our house on Rue de Boeuf. I took an evening stroll to find more boxes to ship stuff home and the streets were quiet and quaint and full of everything I love about this city. A few restaurants were just opening up for the European dinner hour (like 8ish) and a few shops still had their lights on. We have one more day here and I’m missing Lyon already.