Every city needs a gimmick, something to incarnate the values of the brand and lure the tourists. In Lyon (#onlylyon), where I spent last weekend, it's the bouchon, the traditional bistro serving hearty local fare - mostly derived from pig. Every second restaurant in Lyon claims to be a bouchon. Most of them, the locals assured me, are fakes.
A lady who ran a bookshop in Vieux Lyon steered me to a genuine article: the Café des Fédérations (6 rue Major Martin). Small, cramped, with red-checked tablecloths, wood-panelled walls, sepia lighting and possibly the oldest telephone in France, it certainly looked authentic. Before I'd uttered a word, I was given a selection of starters: caviar de lentilles, salade Lyonnaise with egg and lardons and terrine de sanglier. After doing justice to that lot, I was barely able to face the porcine guts and vital organs an offer. Tripe is not my trip. So I opted for a gateau de foies de volaille, which sadly I could not finish.
A less well-known feature of Lyon - to me, anyway - are the traboules, secret passages that wind their way through the city's buildings and streets like an architectural internet. As I explored them, I suddenly saw them as arteries, and myself as a globule of fat moving through them, the product of too much Lyonnaise food. Fortunately, Lyon also has two large hills, to help you burn off the calories.
