D24 onward on the via rhona from Lyon to Loyettes

As I had approached Lyon via the Saone it seemed really important to keep the Rhone until today. So having circled around on my evening out the hotel dieu ( which lends Lyon it's claim to be in the first rank of medical institutional centres....within which it includes Oxford  uniquely from Britain (neglecting my alma maters cambridge, Ucl London and of course above them all Liverpool!) and the old town all on the Saone bank I now gave myself permission to cross to the Rhone confluence and spectacular it was.

 This picture of a confluence and the tai chi i did there is dedicated to the memory of my mate Greg Whiteside. He died in Kathmandu this Spring and was burnt at the sacred confluence of the Bagmati and Vishnumati rivers in the Kathmandu Valley where he taught me much.

And this is the extraordinary Museum of the Confluence ( the crystal and the steel of the two rivers combining in architect speak!) but undoubtedly a triumph.

And then it was time to split the scene man. And after a few hours of grand lyonais  scenes (a great city I will be revisit as you should) I arrived back on the river bank with a perfect booking .com - selected purely on proximity to river and economic grounds turned out to be what my mate Paul calls a 'keeper'!

There are many levels  on which  I can't do justice to the evening because all blogs can only attempt to capture images and record  words when the longer I 'm on this journey I realise it's people as always that make it all special and of course that's the stuff of novels.

But I can share three simple observations - my first and only productive olive sighted North of the alps, what lovely guys work on contract to the local nuclear power station and how can a magret de canard taste so good.