[Sept. 2025] On this day, we travelled from Lyon, France, where we were staying, to the nearby village of Pérouges.
I had previously searched for easy day trips from Lyon, and Pérouges was the first to be listed.
The photos made it look like a very cute village.
I was hoping for something similar to the easy access to Esslingen and Tübingen we enjoyed during our spring trip to southern Germany.
First, we went to Lyon’s Part-Dieu Station.
Everything had gone smoothly up to this point, but we struggled to buy a ticket to Pérouges.
It reminded me of our visit to Fontainebleau.
Many of the machines were broken, and even the ones that worked had some kind of peculiar operation that made it difficult for a first-time user to use.
Later, when I observed the behaviour of the people using the machines, I noticed that they were even turning the dials around the buttons.
So, we asked around and found the manned ticket counter on the first floor.
There were desks beyond the barrier, and we were able to get our ticket using a computer-like device on top of them.
The lady there worked efficiently.
The round-trip fare for two people was €32.60, and it took about 50 minutes to get to the nearest station, Meximieux.
Unfortunately, the weather that day was bad, and the view from the window, overlooking the countryside, was overcast and unattractive.
I had looked it up on my AI beforehand and it said it was a 15-minute walk from Meximieux to Pérouges, but Google said it was 35 minutes.
But since it was a tourist spot, we were confident that a taxi would be waiting for us, but there was no sign of one.
We had no choice but to start walking, following Google Maps.
It was cold, so we walked as fast as we could.
However, the walk was quite steep.
That’s to be expected, considering it’s a medieval village on top of a hill.
My husband, who was a strong runner, continued on without any problems, but I’m not good with hills, so we finally arrived, taking well over the 35 minutes Google suggested.
We bought a map for €0.20 at the tourist information centre at the village entrance.
The person there said, “It’s Tuesday today…so there are two restaurants open.”
I thought everything is closed on Mondays, not Tuesday, but it turns out this village is mainly open on weekends, only Wednesdays through Sundays.
Despite that, there were quite a few visitors.
The person at the information centre offered to call a taxi for us if we stopped by on our way back, but since it was downhill on the way back, we ended up walking.
