The mystery house (part 1)
Last August, we were invited by a friend to spend a week at his little studio in Lyon while he was away on vacation. He emailed us a short list of instructions detailing how to get there and left his keys at the bar downstairs.
His flat is on the fifth floor of a 18th century, slightly decrepit building facing the Rhone river. Like all those houses, it has a beautiful front door with wooden carvings and a metal knocker.
We entered the long hallway. Like many old buildings in Lyon, this one has a second entrance on the other side. In the oldest parts of Lyon, these long passages are called traboules, and sometimes open into small, beautiful Renaissance yards. Our building was more recent though.
We had to find the lift. But where was it? There was a small, fenced off yard on the left.
Later we discovered that this was the concierge's private yard. His only outside view was the bottom of the pit. Here's a view from the first landing.
The way forward was the continuation of the passage, crossing through the building. There was a metal gate on the right side that looked like the door of an old lift.
On close inspection this was not an elevator shaft but the entrance of a deep, deep cave.
Later that week we found the gate opened. It looked like a torture chamber and we didn't get inside. We didn't have the key anyway.
Right after the cave door, there was a door and another yard.
There was a strange sign on the door. What's a "WC BAR"? We didn't have the key to this one either so we never found out.
There were two other doors after the WC BAR one.
The first door was the lift! And this time we had the key! We got in.
We had to go to the fifth floor, but the lift didn't go higher than the fourth.
We got out and tried the next door. It was open. Behind it, there were a small, very small yard.
It was the garbage area.
There were steps, and yet another door. We didn't have the key.
We had a last look at the garbage yard. There were windows and people behind it.
We entered the lift again. It was extremely small and smelled of wet dog hair. We pushed the "4" button, thinking that we'd figure out later how to get to the 5th floor. (To be continued...)
His flat is on the fifth floor of a 18th century, slightly decrepit building facing the Rhone river. Like all those houses, it has a beautiful front door with wooden carvings and a metal knocker.
We entered the long hallway. Like many old buildings in Lyon, this one has a second entrance on the other side. In the oldest parts of Lyon, these long passages are called traboules, and sometimes open into small, beautiful Renaissance yards. Our building was more recent though.
We had to find the lift. But where was it? There was a small, fenced off yard on the left.
Later we discovered that this was the concierge's private yard. His only outside view was the bottom of the pit. Here's a view from the first landing.
The way forward was the continuation of the passage, crossing through the building. There was a metal gate on the right side that looked like the door of an old lift.
On close inspection this was not an elevator shaft but the entrance of a deep, deep cave.
Later that week we found the gate opened. It looked like a torture chamber and we didn't get inside. We didn't have the key anyway.
Right after the cave door, there was a door and another yard.
There was a strange sign on the door. What's a "WC BAR"? We didn't have the key to this one either so we never found out.
There were two other doors after the WC BAR one.
The first door was the lift! And this time we had the key! We got in.
We had to go to the fifth floor, but the lift didn't go higher than the fourth.
We got out and tried the next door. It was open. Behind it, there were a small, very small yard.
It was the garbage area.
There were steps, and yet another door. We didn't have the key.
We had a last look at the garbage yard. There were windows and people behind it.
We entered the lift again. It was extremely small and smelled of wet dog hair. We pushed the "4" button, thinking that we'd figure out later how to get to the 5th floor. (To be continued...)
Labels: architecture, Lyon
posted by Gilles at
11:14 PM
2 Comments:
Bonjour J'ai écrit un de mes poèmes sur une de vos créas
à titre perso bien sûr ! je ne publie pas mes poèmes....j'espère que cela ne pose pas de problème sinon dites le moi ! et je le retire de l"image ! merci !
http://blog.ifrance.com/mylenepoemes/blogimage.php?t=0&i=592237&rnd=1226752950270
Thanks for the free models, i use one for my portfolio/noncommercial very nice site and thanks for your work.
Open source and CC for ever!
I use the nice and simpel model of your rubber duck!
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