Wednesday 14 November 2012

Autumn trees, birds, statues, a bear and largish cats...

The weather was wonderful this afternoon so I put on my coat and went for a long and leisurely walk in the Parc de la Tête d'Or. It's one of France's biggest urban parks. Trees here are beginning to shed their leaves in preparation for winter and that means that the park is particularly beautiful at the moment.

There weren't many people there because I arrived at about 4:30, when many people are still at work, but I didn't mind. It was almost as if I had the whole place to myself.

Here are some photos I took whilst walking around.

The park has several entrances and this is the first thing you see as you go through on of the smaller ones.


There is a lot of birdlife in the park and some species are not what you'd usually see in your back garden. Apart from the ducks that is.




Here is one of my favourite statues in the park. I appreciate its simplicity and it has been tastefully situated.


I wanted to take some pictures of trees and my route towards the most wooded area of the park went through the zoo. I'm not a big fan of zoos, but what can I do, they are there, so I thought I'd snap a few pixtures of some of its inhabitants. There's a bear....


...and some big cats too. The male lion was roaring and although I've heard lions roaring many times in my life it never fails to impress me. The leopard was prowling around quietly.



But I had come to see the trees as they changed colour and I took lots of photos of them. The first one looks like it's growing out of the top of the drinks and snacks stand and as I walked around I saw many other splendid colours.







But of all the many thousands of beautiful trees in the Parc de la Tête d'Or this is my favourite.


May I wish everyone an excellent evening.

3 comments:

  1. Beautiful walk in the park Frip. I was concentrating on the photos rather than the text when I saw what I at first though was a big black (domestic) cat. And was momentarily shocked when I read " bear" - bears roam in parks in Lyon?? So I then re-read more carefully. A zoo in the park. Well that's all right then!

    BTW in my book Lyon is famous for a) haute cuisine and b)the silk industry which supplied the haute couture designers in Paris. Any chance of you posting an exploration of these aspects of Lyons in the future?

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    Replies
    1. Good evening Elegance and I hope you and yours are well. The zoo has lots of other species including elephants, tigers, many kinds of monkeys and apes, a couple of crocodiles and others. I happen to know the staff who work with them as a result of us meeting in a professional context and they really do love their animals. Do they think zoos are ethically acceptable? They know zoos aren't perfect but they consider them to be necessary in order to interest young people in wildlife. Make of that what thou shalt...

      Blogs on Lyon's cuisine and silk industry? No sooner said than done although I'll have to get out there and take some pix as well as do a little research but, promise, they shall be up very soon.

      Hey and I just went to see your blog and realise that you have been posting merrily away and that I have forgotten to subscribe to posts! Rats! I have to do something right now but I'll go see what you've been up to after that....

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  2. Hii
    Really nice Collection for this post and good blog you write..

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