Last Updated on September 20, 2016
![by the hotel carlton](https://saramoulton.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/by-the-hotel-carlton-206x300.jpg)
By the Hotel Carlton
Day 2 and 3 in Lyon. On the way back to the Carlton Hotel after our dinner at La Tassée – The Husband was knocked out by his rognons – we were hanging out by the fountains in the Place de la Republique when our attention was arrested by a dozen or so young couples jitterbugging to Rosetta Hawks’s 1937 recording of “If You’re a Viper.” I was surprised at first, but then it struck me that it’s no weirder for the French to love American jazz than it is for Americans to love French cuisine.
![at the photographer's](https://saramoulton.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/at-the-photographers-300x211.jpg)
One Night at the Photographer’s
The next morning we got up early and went to the Musee de Beaux Arts. We were on a mission to check out their collection of Impressionist paintings, but ended up enchanted by a couple of other pieces. The first was an astonishing painting by Pascal-Adolphe-Jean Dagnan-Bouveret entitled “Une noce chez le photographe.” Dated 1879, it’s as much about the antic crowd gathered to watch a photo being made of a newly married couple as it is about the couple themselves. In the adjoining gallery there was a wooden sculpture of an owl by the one and only Picasso (pronounced “Pee cah so” in these parts) from 1953. I’d love to see it on our kitchen table, but I must admit it’s a little bit out of our range.
![picasso owl](https://saramoulton.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/picasso-owl-280x300.jpg)
Picasso’s Sculpture of an Owl