Quick Trip to Lyon the Cuisine Capital of France

Week 10 in France 10/5-10/11/2025

Welcome to the 38th weekly post of our Baby Boomers Move to France blog. We are in our third month of full time living in France. We were traveling this week, so I didn’t get to write much. I’ll fill in some of the blanks about Lyon next week.

The weather most of this week has been cool in the morning and turns absolutely gorgeous by 2:00. It was a little cooler in Lyon during our visit.

Things on the agenda this week:

• Follow up coordination of adequate funds for the house purchase and tips to think about
• Continue researching pellet burners for heat.
• I need to find a self-serve car wash too.
• Follow up car insurance and some interesting facts about insurance rates

Why a Blog?

If this is your first visit to our blog, we will try to keep the story of our move to France interesting enough to bring you back each week. If you have questions about our adventure, please feel free to ask in the comment section below. Long story short, we are a couple of “Baby Boomers” that have moved from Venice, Florida to the French countryside as retirees.

As we shared our move plans with friends and family, we were asked questions about who, what, why, when and where, so we figured that there is enough interest to share the experience. So, we started this blog. Our plan is to publish a brief update on our life in France every Sunday. Hopefully we answer some of those questions and keep answering more as we work our way to our new life. We will also include thoughts on the lifestyle and culture of our new home.

After a little over a year of planning and fretting we moved to France on 1 August 2025.

This Week in General

Car Insurance Update

After sending updated information to the car insurance company, we heard back from them to let us know that our insurance will be reduced to around 450 euros (about $500) per year. The original quote was about 900 euros per year. What a happy surprise. I love France. Then they said they need more information. I’m on it.

It is all good payment is finalized and coverage is good. We will see about our situation next year.

Tip: When you move to France bring your driving record for at least the past 5 years. We went through the Forida DMV and were able to request our history over the past 7 years online. Also get your driver record from you auto insurance company (or companies). Since we have been careful, we had no reported incidents on our records. Thus, as I mentioned above our annual premium dropped from roughly 900 euros to about 450 euros.

House Update

New info on the house came in this week. We had some questions, and we did get some answers.

• We learned that the house was actually built in 1905 and has been updated over the years. I guess it didn’t get totally destroyed during World War 2. I had guessed it was built around 1945-47. Wrong
• You might remember that I wondered why the owners of the house took out the wood burning heater. It turns out that they sold the wood burner with plans to replace it with a pellet stove. Preferably a ducted or hydro model. That means that I need to research ducted and hydro model. More on that.
• The solar power system was recently installed and is fully functional. I will have to read up on how these things work. We know that there are 9 solar panels installed. I hope that it isn’t too much more complicated than the Jackery system that we had in Venice for hurricane backup power and camping.
• All exterior and interior walls are stone.
• Significant insulation has been added throughout the house.

It turns out the old stone walls of the house have to breathe and if you cover them such that they can’t breathe mold develops and the wall actually starts to deteriorate. We were concerned about the insulation that the owner of the house had put over the walls. He was smart and left an air gap so the wall can breathe. Even painting the walls can cause problems so care in paint selection is critical. I don’t have an answer for that yet but will share when I get that information.

Lyon

We drove to Lyon on Thursday and stayed over until Sunday morning. Our main objective was to meet up with Leif and Lisa as they were going to have some time in Lyon while they were on their Viking River cruise before they set off for Switzerland. We got together on Friday and did a guided walking tour that highlighted some of the foods of Lyon. Lyon is known as the gastronomic capital of France. The tour was good, but hanging out with Leif and Lisa was the real treat. The weather was a little cool but not too bad.

I like doing guided tours. They give you a general idea of the town so that you can get your bearings and ask the guide questions. Once you get a general idea of the layout you can explore on your own and take your time at areas of the most interest to you. The tour was guided by a very knowledgeable lady. She took us through the old town area and included a charcuterie board of meats and cheeses at a cheese shop and eventually we ended by sampling a pastry at a shop dedicated to pastries where we tasted a Lyonnaise specialty. Good stuff.

On Saturday EB and I went on a tour of the area on Segways. We have done Segway tours in the past and knew what to expect and enjoyed the tour. Rosie came along on my back in her backpack. This was Rosie’s first Segway ride. She did great.

Lyon is a huge city and as such has some big city problems like parking and traffic jams. Luckily, they have a pretty good public transit system but still the cars, trucks, bikes, motorized scooters and e-bikes zipping around can be a bit overwhelming especially for folks that prefer the countryside. Because of the parking issue, once we found a parking place in the underground parking structures, we just left the car and walked everywhere. The center of town is very walkable just be sure to wear comfortable walking shoes. For the 3 nights the cost of parking was 95 euros. Way less stress than driving. I will say that when we left early Sunday morning it was a breeze as traffic was almost quiet.

All that said, 3 days is not enough time to see and experience the whole town. there is a lot to see and EB and I agree we probably will go back to visit Lyon, the town that staddles the confluence of the Rhone River and the Saone River. The old town is gorgeous.

The drive from Duras to Lyon was very enjoyable at a little over 5 hours of very picturesque scenery. The leaves are starting to change color, so we had that treat. The roads are very good. We went over a mountain pass that was over 1000 meters high or abut 3280 feet. Snow chains can be required at this elevation during the winter. They say that the best snow skiing in the southern alps of France is during December and January.

About Funds

I mentioned this before, but I think it is worth mentioning again; If you are moving to France you will want to try to purchase Euros when the Dollar is strong against the Euro. I didn’t expect the dollar to drop in value like it did, so I didn’t purchase Euros at the optimum time. I should have bought in December 2024 when 100 USD bought 96 Euros. Now 100 USD only buys 86 Euros. Tough lesson especially given the fact that we were definitely moving to France. It really matters when you are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to purchase a home. By the way, if you are over 65 years old and retired it is pretty near next to impossible to get a mortgage for a house purchase if you are thinking along those lines.

Don’t forget that you will need spending money. I think we made a good decision on getting a Wise account. I spent a bit of time writing about the Wise account on the blog. I eventually made the move while we were still in Florida. Good decision. The thing about Wise is they handle foreign exchange, but the money in your account is available via a debit card. So you get your spending money at a good exchange rate whereas if you go through your US bank you can get really beat up on the exchange rate. Your 100 USD doesn’t get you even 86 euros.

French Lifestyle and Culture

Smoking

A week or so ago when I was talking about the Tabac culture, I mentioned that smoking has been in decline in France. Something of interest though is that those people that do smoke tend to roll their own cigarettes or vape. Perhaps this is less expensive than buying a pack of ready-made cigarettes or it is just a cultural thing. I even noticed one lady rolling a filter into her cigarette. Ash trays are common on the tables at the outdoor cafes where smoking is allowed. If you like to smoke you should know it is not allowed in the restaurants. It seems like every restaurant has outdoor seating.

Next Week (la Semaine Prochaine)

• Start researching ducted and hydro style pellet burners for heat.
• I need to find a self-serve car wash too.

Weather for next week

Weather forecast for next week in Duras is partly cloudy without much chance of rain with highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s all week.

Signing off for the week

As always, we sign off wishing you all a good week and remind you to take care of yourselves and your family.

Keep in touch and leave questions, suggestions and comments below. We really enjoy hearing from you. Your kind and encouraging words remind us that we can do this.

A bientot (see you soon)

Mark and Elizabeth Beiley

Babyboomersmovetofrance.com