I'd walked
right by Montée des Chazeaux countless times without noticing its many steep
& crooked steps. Always rushing through Vieux Lyon, listening for sounds to record or looking for
reflections in motorbike mirrors to photograph. It was a delayed reaction
when half a block down I thought to backtrack and confirm the staircase
glimpsed from the corner of my eye. A five-flight shortcut to Montée
Saint-Barthélémy and Parc de Hauters, the steps were strangely empty despite
lush views of the city offered from each landing. So I felt all the more
like a traveller between worlds when I would traverse the stairs alone on brisk
evening walks from the church to the city's summit & back. Over
time I would discover that Lyon possessed many such passages. Having grown up in the plains and
previously lived mainly in flat, grid-like cities like Chicago & Boston,
stairs were until that summer all too often dour markers of duty – entryways
to schools, libraries, and houses of worship. Lyon's secret staircases –
pathways of wonder – were wholly free of such foot-slowing seriousness.
Julie
passa une jambe par la fenêtre quand soudain la pluie.
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