Early in the morning of the 20th, John's family set off from Paris and took a train to Lyon. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

Adele hasn't been back home for almost 20 years. On the train, she kept babbling stories about her childhood. For the first time, John noticed that she was a little nagging. But this "nagging" is not annoying at all, but it seems that she is very cute.

Coming out of the Blotto train station in Lyon, John and his party first went to the old house of Adele's family. When Monsieur de Gano returned to Lyon from the Vietnamese colony and started his banking business, he set up his home on the south side of Place Ampère, not far from Rue Hugo. (PS. is the French physicist who invented Ampere's law, not the Japanese Abe.) ）

It is a beautiful four-storey building with a red roof that is common in Vieux Lyon. Now the house has been converted into a hotel, and the owner, Pierre, is an old friend of Degano. When Mr. Degano moved his family to the United States, he sold the house to her.

"Uncle Pierre, it's a pleasure to see you." Adele happily hugged the bearded boss who came out of the store, "Your beard is still so beautiful." ”

"Oh my God, is this Adele, you were a young lady the last time we met." Pierre's voice was very loud, and he greeted everyone warmly, and then patted Monsieur de Garno on the shoulder, and said, "What do I mean, old man." I said back then that Adele must be a great beauty when she grows up, so I'm right. ”

"Uncle Pierre~" was "teased" by the elders in front of her daughter, Adele's face turned red, and she was rarely coquettish.

"Alright, alright, let's get inside." Pierre happily greeted everyone, "I have a surprise for you." Adele, tonight you can sleep in the original room. I found the dresser from before and just fixed it last night. ”

The feeling of "coming home" was really great. Both Adele and Monsieur Degarno, who had always been a bit serious, seemed to be much younger all of a sudden, and they were laughing and laughing.

John hugged Ella and visited Adele's "former home" with great interest. The room is not large, but the decoration is very exquisite, and the apple green floral curtains look like Adele's style. When the curtains are opened, you can see most of the old town of Lyon and the Fourvière mountain in the distance, and the view is quite good.

Today, John: Their lunch was cooked by the owner, Pierre. Pierre is one of the most famous chefs in the city of Lyon, famous for his Lyonnais sausages and grilled fish meatballs with sauce. The familiar taste of home whets Adele's appetite, and she eats even more than John at noon.

After her lunch break, Adele turned into a "tour guide" and took her husband and daughter on a tour of Vieux Lyon.

In other words, the city of Lyon is really "old". The second largest city in France after Paris, it was once the capital of the Kingdom of Burgundy and dates back to Roman times in 43 BC. Julius Caesar used it as a base for his conquest of Gaul, and there is still an open-air theater from the Roman era on the hill of Fourvie.

The Johns' sightseeing tour of Lyon starts from the Place de la Whiteapple in the heart of the city. Adele has always been fond of cafes when she was in the United States.

To be honest, John was a little disappointed with the "White Apple Square". There is nothing else to see in the square except for a statue of Louis XIV on horseback, and it feels too far from Tiananmen Square in later generations. And the floor of the square is not paved with stone slabs, but with a thick layer of red clay, which feels like a large tennis court.

Although Adele is a "Lyonnais", she insists that the red hue of the square is very much in line with the red roofs of the buildings of Vieux Lyon. But when he thinks of the Lyon textile workers' riots that took place in this square in the mid-19th century, John always felt that there was a smell of blood in the red clay.

The square is surrounded by four- and five-story buildings built in the early 19th century, which look a lot like Adele's "former home". Most of the first floors of these buildings are filled with flower shops, cafes and restaurants, and many citizens relax in the open-air cafes.

While John was accompanying the "master photographer" Ella to create art, Adele found a café and sat down. Watching her mother bask in the sun while sipping coffee, looking lazy and comfortable, Ella's "artistic inspiration" was great, and she ran over and took several photos of her in a row.

"Well done, Ella! One will reward you with a piece of cake. John is very satisfied with his daughter's artistic sense, Adele's appearance is indeed beautiful, and it is about to catch up with the coffee advertisements of later generations, will Ella be an advertising director in the future?

But Adele, your father and husband are both "big capitalists", what's the matter with your petty-bourgeois mood?

After their coffee, Adele took them to the Cathedral of Saint-Jean-sur-Saône. This church is not grandiose, but it is known for its seniority and high status. In the Catholic Church, the Archbishop of Lyon enjoys the status of Archbishop. This nearly 1,000-year-old Romanesque and Gothic church hosted the coronation of Pope John XXII and the wedding of King Henry IV of France and Queen Mary de Medici.

John wasn't too interested in churches, though, preferring the old neighborhood of Lyon on the nearby hill of the Red Cross. This neighborhood has preserved many old residential houses from the 15th to the 17th centuries. Walking along the narrow streets, many Gothic, Renaissance and Classical houses are connected to each other, giving you a rich historical atmosphere that makes you feel like you are in the Middle Ages.

What attracted John the most was the intricate secret passages in the old neighborhood. These secret passages are both above and below ground, and their entrances are always located behind a small hidden door in a nondescript dwelling.

Adele told John that these secret passages were first built during the Roman Empire, but more often were built in the 19th century to make it easier for workers to transport valuable silk in bad weather. Lyon is the center of the silk textile industry in Europe, where tens of thousands of silk weavers worked, and where the first foot-operated jacquard loom was invented.

Driven by curiosity, John couldn't help but go in and take a look. Although there are lights in the passage, it is still a little gloomy compared to the bright sun outside. John tried to walk fifty or sixty meters, but found that there were so many forks in the road that it would be difficult to get lost, so he had to retreat.

In his previous life, John had seen a film about the French Resistance during World War II. In the film, the civil resistance groups in Lyon use these secret passages to deal with the German occupation forces. Since there was no map of these passages (in fact, the French themselves did not have it), the Germans and the Gestapo had no way to take them. It feels like a French version of "tunnel warfare".

Leaving the Red Cross Mountain, Adele took them to the Fourvière Mountain, known as the "Blessing Mountain". This small hill is only about 100 meters high, and the Byzantine Church of Notre-Dame at the top of the hill is the symbol of Lyon, and on its left platform it overlooks the whole city.

As soon as he reached the foot of the mountain, John heard a familiar singing.

"My home is on the Songhua River in northeast China, where there are forest coal mines and soybean sorghum all over the mountains. My home is on the Songhua River in Northeast China, where there are my compatriots and my old father and mother......"

"Mom, this song is so good, what are they singing?" Ella asked.

"I don't know, it's not French, it's like an Asian language, maybe Chinese or Japanese." Adele listened carefully for a while, but she didn't understand. Some of the cooks and servants that Mr. Degano brought back from Nanyang could speak Cantonese, and Adele could understand a few words of Cantonese when she was a child. But she couldn't understand the Chinese with a northern accent.

"Ella, they're singing 'On the Songhua River,' which is a Chinese song." John had never felt like a fragile man before, but his eyes were already faintly red. Holding back the excitement in his heart, he explained to his daughter in a whisper.

"By the way, you know Chinese." Adele suddenly remembered: "If it weren't for the last time I met Mrs. Walsh (Pearl Race), I wouldn't have known you could speak Chinese." When did you learn it, Chinese is so difficult. ”

"I'll be there when I wake up." John really wasn't lying.

"Cut~" Adele didn't believe it, and proudly rewarded John with a roll of the eyes.

Halfway up the hill of Fourvie, John and the others met the singers. This is a group of young people in their 20s, both men and women, all with black hair and yellow skin, who are collecting money for China's war of resistance.

Yes, John remembered, not far from here is the Sino-French University of Lyon, where these young people are supposed to be Chinese students.

Speaking of which, the relationship between Lyon and China goes back a long way. It was once the distribution center of Chinese silk products in Europe, and the silk processing technology transmitted from China made Lyon the silk capital of Europe.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Lyon was the only city in Europe where Chinese courses were taught. Founded in 1921 with Gengzi refunds, the Sino-French University of Lyon was the first and only Chinese university overseas.

Édouard Helio, then mayor of Lyon, who later served as French Prime Minister, President of the Chamber of Deputies, and President of the National Assembly, donated an abandoned military fortress halfway up the Fourvière Mountains as the site of the Sino-French University of Foreign Affairs.

Today is a rest day, and there are many tourists on the mountain of Fourvie, but there are not many people who stop to watch these Chinese students perform, only a dozen of them. But the young man was still full of emotion, passionate and generous, as if he had inexhaustible strength.

John watched quietly for a while, and the youthful faces of these "revolutionary old-timers" reminded him of his experience in New York more than a month ago.