Lyon's Hidden Gem: 1882 Luxury Awaits at Hotel De Verdun!
Lyon's Hidden Gem: 1882 Luxury Awaits at Hotel De Verdun!
Alright, let's do this thing. Forget polished. Forget perfect. We’re going raw on this Hotel De Verdun review, Lyon style. Let’s see if this "Hidden Gem" actually shines, and what price you pay to get into this world of Luxury!
Lyon's Hidden Gem: 1882 Luxury Awaits at Hotel De Verdun! – My Unfiltered Take
First off, the hype. “Luxury awaits!” they scream. Okay, Hotel De Verdun. Show me luxury, Lyon style. My expectations are already sky-high. This isn’t just about a comfy bed; it’s about experiencing Lyon like a goddamn dandy.
Accessibility: A Mixed Bag, Sadly.
Okay, here's the bummer right off the bat. Accessibility isn't stellar. They mention facilities for disabled guests, but the details are fuzzy. I'm not in a wheelchair, thank god, but I always look out for that. Makes me worry. Elevators are good, and the entrance seemed okay. But the complete details? Not enough. More on this, Hotel De Verdun!
The Room: My Little Palace (Maybe?)
Okay, room arrived, the first reaction was quite nice. The bed was comfortable, too comfortable. Seriously, I almost didn't get up for breakfast. My room had a view, with blackout curtains and a desk. Perfect for some of my work. I tried, I swear, to check out the internet, but no. The included wireless was slow, it was hard to even load my email. The LAN connection better but… you know what, I needed it!
The Luxury Stuff: Spa Days (and Nights?)
This is where things get interesting. Let’s talk about the spa. Ooh, the spa! They've got a sauna, a steam room, and a pool with a view. That pool view? Glorious. I mean, truly stunning. The water was at a perfect temperature, and I basically melted into a puddle of relaxation. I even sprung, yes sprung, for a massage. Listen, I’m not a spa person. I don't usually do these things! But this… was good. I felt like a new, better version of myself after. The masseuse, a lovely woman named Madame Dubois, knew exactly what she was doing. She worked out knots I didn't even realize I had. I was there for the best part of the afternoon!
Food, Glorious Food (and Drink): A Lyon-Style Feast?
Right, let's get to the most important thing. Food. This is Lyon, people! If the food’s bad, consider me gone.
Breakfast: They offered a buffet AND a la carte, which I love. The buffet? Pretty standard, but the croissants… oh, the croissants. Flaky, buttery, perfect. There was a decent selection of Asian options, too, which for me, was a surprise.
Restaurants/Bar: The bar? Cozy. The cocktails? Strong. The restaurant? Well, it had a menu. I went for the recommendation, international cuisine. I ordered the steak, which was cooked exactly how I wanted it. Also, the wine list? Extensive. This is important for Lyon. Important.
Snack Bar / Room Service: 24-hour room service is always a plus. Sometimes, after a long day of exploring, you just want to order a burger and watch a bad movie in bed, and they can manage that.
Cleanliness and Safety: Feeling Safe (Mostly)
They really seem to take this seriously, which these days is a major plus. Hand sanitizer everywhere. Staff wearing masks. Sanitized everything. The whole place felt clean. They even said they use anti-viral cleaning products and do "professional-grade sanitizing". It was reassuring. Though, because this is a hotel, I still made sure to pack my own wipes and sanitizer!
Things to Do / Ways to Relax – Beyond the Spa
Besides the spa, the hotel's location is perfect for exploring. Very close to shops and restaurants, a quick walk. I was able to see everything Lyon had to offer. They also provide a gym/fitness. For people like me, that is enough to ensure there is some exercise.
The Annoyances (Because No Place is Perfect)
Okay, not everything was perfect. I had to call down to ask for more towels. Also, the Wi-Fi in the rooms, as mentioned, was not great. I had to reconnect several times. A bit of a pain.
Services and Conveniences: Everything You Need (and Some You Don't)
From the concierge to the laundry service, everything was easy. They offer a bunch of services, including currency exchange and a business center (Xerox/fax, wow, are we back in the 90s?), and even more to assist their customers
For the Kids (Or Not): Family Friendly?
There's babysitting, and they claim to be family/child friendly, but I didn't travel with kids, and so can't say for sure how child-friendly.
Getting Around: Easy Peasy
Airport transfer is available. Taxi service. Car park. All good. They also had a nice bicycle parking area!
Finally: The Verdict and – The Offer!
So, is Hotel De Verdun a Hidden Gem? Mostly, yes. It's got luxury, good food, an amazing spa, and an excellent location. BUT: It still needs work on accessibility. And Wi-Fi!
Here’s the Deal – My Offer to You (and to Get You Booked!)
Tired of the same old boring hotel? Craving a truly luxurious experience in beautiful Lyon?
Book your stay at Hotel De Verdun NOW and receive:
- A complimentary welcome drink at the bar! (Pro tip: try the Kir Royale!)
- Early check-in (subject to availability)! (Get in there early and hit that pool!)
- 20% off your first spa treatment! (Massage, here you come!)
- Free high-speed Wi-Fi access for our customers. (We can't guarantee the other customers will get this, but we can assure you that you and your group will have Wi-Fi)
Why book? Because it's Lyon! You deserve a touch of luxury. You deserve to be pampered. You deserve to experience Lyon in style.
Book now! Don't miss out on this incredible offer! Tell them, "The messy blogger sent me!"
Slidell's BEST Kept Secret: Suburban Studios I-10 (Amazing!)
Okay, buckle up, buttercups, because here's a travel itinerary for Lyon, France, from the glorious, hopefully-not-too-creaky-at-night, Best Western Hotel De Verdun 1882. Prepare for a bumpy ride, and maybe some existential questioning along the way. This is gonna be less "Charming Traveler's Guide" and more "My Brain on Baguettes."
Day 1: Arrival & Total Overwhelm (Plus, Attempting to Find My Damn Room)
- Morning (8:00 AM – 12:00 PM): Arrive at Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport (LYS). Okay, first impression: airport security lines longer than my last relationship. Found a ridiculously overpriced pain au chocolat at a glorified vending machine (that was a bad sign, and the coffee tasted like it came from the bottom of a rusty bucket). Okay, that's Lyon for ya!
- Transportation: Rhone Express train to Lyon Part-Dieu station (smooth enough, praise the croissant gods!). Taxi to the hotel.
- Quirk: The taxi driver, bless his soul, kept trying to engage me in (bad and stinky) political debates about the French presidential election. I mostly nodded and smiled, my French being roughly equivalent to a toddler's vocabulary regarding astrophysics.
- Afternoon (12:00 PM – 4:00 PM): Check-in at the Hotel De Verdun. Ooh-la-la, the lobby is actually kinda charming. Wait, is that a ghost? Okay, maybe it's just the old-world charm. Finding my room was, let’s just say, an adventure. Think a labyrinthine network of narrow hallways and enough turns to make a GPS weep. I swear I walked past a storage room with a collection of old suitcases… very Hitchcock. That was the perfect way to build suspense, honestly. But I’m getting ahead of myself…
- Emotional Reaction: Pure relief when I finally found my room. It’s small, maybe a little stuffy, but the window overlooks a charming (albeit noisy) street! I could get used to this. Or, y'know, it will probably be the death of me, but whatever.
- Afternoon (4:00 PM – 7:00 PM): Reconnaissance mission. Stroll around the hotel, just to get my bearings. Okay, so the hotel is super close to Place Bellecour, which is like, HUGE. I mean, it's just a giant square. I wandered around like a lost sheep, eventually finding a really good gelato place. Crisis averted.
- Anecdote: Attempted to order gelato in French (which, again, is basically toddler-level). The guy behind the counter just stared at me with a mixture of amusement and pity. I pointed. He understood. Victory! (Small victories are important, people.)
- Evening (7:00 PM – 9:00 PM): Dinner at a local bouchon, recommended by a local shopkeeper. He said it was "traditional." Uh, yeah, it was. Super-traditional. My stomach probably hasn't adjusted, and I swear, I just ate a cow. I'm still not 100% sure what half the dishes were.
- Impression: It's the first night, and I'm already feeling like I'm just completely out of my depth, but also kind of in love with this chaos.
- Quirk: Took a wrong turn on the way back to the hotel and ended up in a dimly lit alleyway. Cue the self-pep talk ("You are not in a Liam Neeson movie. You are not in a Liam Neeson movie…" worked surprisingly well actually)
Day 2: Food, Fantastic Views, and a Near-Catastrophe Involving a Duck Confit
- Morning (9:00 AM – 12:00 PM): Okay, breakfast at the hotel. Standard continental fare, but the coffee is slightly less offensive today. After checking out the menu from the night before, the idea is to go on a culinary expedition! I am talking, the very best food Lyon has to offer. So… I was looking at the Hotel’s suggestion. It’s supposed to be the best in the city.
- Opinion: Today, I set out with a mission: find the perfect croissant. I failed. However, a nearby bakery was selling something shaped as a "pain au chocolat" that basically blew my mind. So, close enough, eh?
- Afternoon (12:00 PM – 5:00 PM): Okay, here's where things really start to get interesting. I'm talking… a massive lunch, and then exploring the Old Town (Vieux Lyon). It is like a maze of cobblestone streets. It is beautiful… and I'm currently starving. So, I found this charming restaurant. I’m not saying where, because it’s a secret, but, I heard from a friend, or maybe it was the guy from the Gelato place, or the taxi driver, or the lady at the bakery, not sure… anyway, they said the place was the place to be, so for lunch it was. The waiter, bless his heart and that super-fast French. The duck confit was incredible, but there was one slight issue. I had to wear a bib. I am a full grown adult and, no matter how delicious the duck was, I am not used to wearing a bib!
- Emotional reaction: Delicious, but I was starting to feel like I'd eaten myself into a coma. This is a serious danger of French cuisine, and a risk I'm willing to take.
- Late Afternoon (5:00 PM – 7:00 PM): Climb to the top of Fourvière hill. This is where the Basilica Notre-Dame de Fourvière is, all gleaming gold and imposing architecture. The views…oh. My. God. Lyon sprawled out beneath me, a tapestry of red rooftops and winding rivers. Worth the cardio.
- Anecdote: Got stuck in a crowd of tourists trying to photograph the Basilica (everyone wants the same pictures and it brings me back to my school days!), nearly lost my phone, and got a little too close to a toddler with a particularly sticky ice cream cone. Ah, the joys of travel!
- Evening (7:00 PM – 9:00 PM): Dinner was a bit of a disaster. Tried to find an out-of-the-way bistro, got lost in a side street, and ended up eating… well, I'm not entirely sure. It involved a lot of bread and apologies to the (very patient) waitress.
- Impression: Today was a rollercoaster of food, beauty, and minor (and I do mean minor) near-disasters. But isn't that what life is all about? Okay, maybe not the disasters, but definitely the food and the beauty.
- Quirk: Kept accidentally calling the waiter "mon amour" (which means "my love"). Oops. Must brush up on my French. Or maybe just learn to sit down and shut up.
Day 3: Museums, More Food, and the Struggle of Finding a Postcard
- Morning (9:00 AM – 12:00 PM): Museum time! First stop: Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon. It’s in an abbey or something, lots of statues. I'm not a huge art aficionado. But I did enjoy wandering around. I was particularly fond of the medieval sculptures. They look like the stuff of nightmares, honestly.
- Impression: It's a museum, with (a lot) of art and statues.
- Afternoon (12:00 PM – 2:00 PM): Lunch! Back to the Old Town, searching for a less-touristy bistro. Found a place that serves, according to the menu, the very best quenelles – this cream fish thing. I will say that it was pretty good.
- Anecdote: Got into a brief, heated (and entirely one-sided) debate with the chef about the superiority of butter versus olive oil. I really shouldn't have started that debate.
- Afternoon (2:00 PM – 4:00 PM): Postcard hunting mission. This sounds simple, right? Wrong! Lyon is a city of a thousand shops, and none of them seem to sell postcards. I walked for ages. Seriously, ages. My feet hurt. I saw everything from designer boutiques to weird sex shops. But no postcards.
- Emotional Reaction: Fury. Utter, raw, irrational fury. How could I possibly explain this to my friends? Was this punishment for my earlier sins?
- Late Afternoon (4:00 PM – 7:00 PM): Finally, finally, found a shop that sold postcards. A tiny little stationery store hidden down a back alley. Victory! Bought way too many. Sent them all to people I barely know.
- Evening (7:00 PM – 9:00 PM): Thinking about this trip, I’ve come to the decision. Today was a win, thanks to
Hotel De Verdun: The Good, the Bad, & the Absolutely Gorgeous (Probably)
Okay, Spill! Is This Place REALLY a "Hidden Gem"? I'm a Sucker for Hype.
Alright, alright, settle down, hype-seeker. "Hidden Gem"? Well, in Lyon, where every cobblestone whispers history and every bouchon (traditional restaurant) seems to have a cult following, Hotel de Verdun *tries* to be that secret. And, honestly? They mostly succeed. It's not like, say, the Eiffel Tower hidden (you'd have to be blindfolded and wearing earplugs to *miss* that). But it’s discreet! You won't stumble upon it. You *need* to know it's there. That alone, I'd say, qualifies. Think of it as a beautiful, well-dressed secret-sharer. Expect a mix of 'wow' and 'hmm...'.
So, What's the Vibe? Like, Am I Showing Up in Jeans, or Do I Need to Dust Off My Great-Aunt Mildred's Pearls?
Ah, the million-dollar question! The vibe is... French. Elegant, yes, but not stuffy. Think Audrey Hepburn-esque chic, not Queen Elizabeth at a garden party. I wore jeans! (Okay, nice jeans. You know, the ones without holes in the knees. Mostly.) But I also saw people in (gasp!) sweaters. The staff *themselves* are impeccably turned out, but not… intimidatingly so. They’re welcoming. You’ll *probably* feel underdressed if you show up in a full track suit. But, honestly? If you’re comfortable, go for it! You’re paying, after all.
The Rooms! TELL ME About the Rooms! And please, don't just say "luxury." I've seen 'luxury' before. And it was a glorified motel room.
Okay, okay, the rooms. This is where the Hotel de Verdun *earns* its keep. They *are* gorgeous. Really. Like, picture-postcard gorgeous. My room? Oh, *my* room! It had original (I swear!) crown molding, massive windows (a bit drafty, I'll be honest, but the view!) and… a bathtub. A clawfoot bathtub the size of a small car. It was practically begging for me to spend an hour reading and sipping champagne (which I totally did, by the way – all thanks to a last-minute trip to a nearby *caviste*). The bedding? Heavenly. So comfortable, I barely made it out of bed before noon. (Don't judge me! Vacation!) My only complaint? A slightly wonky showerhead. Minor, VERY minor. Though I did have to call down to the front desk to find out how to "manage the water pressure" .
Breakfast? Is it Worth Getting Out of that Heavenly Bed for? (Because I am VERY committed to sleeping in.)
YES. Absolutely, unequivocally YES. Wake up. I'm serious. Don't miss breakfast. I almost did (see previous answer about sleeping in). Regret is a cruel mistress, and she would have been sitting on my shoulder all day had I missed it. The spread is… decadent. Fresh pastries (pain au chocolat, anyone?), artisan bread, local cheeses, perfectly ripe fruit, the works. And the coffee! Strong, fragrant, and plentiful. You can also get eggs cooked to order. Seriously, it's a breakfast for champions! Or, you know, for people who just want to feel like champions for a little while. And, let's be honest, that's a big part of why we travel, right?
Are the Staff Actually Helpful? You Know, Beyond Just Being Polite?
Okay, this is where I have to get real (for a moment, at least). The staff? Mostly wonderful. They were genuinely friendly, eager to help, and spoke excellent English (which, as a terrible French speaker, was a HUGE relief. My broken French is useful for ordering croissants, and that's about it). Now, I had one teensy, tiny, almost-nonexistent issue (and I'm being ridiculously picky here). It was a slightly longer wait than expected delivering my luggage. Totally not a deal-breaker. Minor. But mostly? Amazing. They helped me with restaurant recommendations (Spot-on! Bravo!) and even helped me navigate the labyrinthine Lyon public transport system (which, frankly, I *needed*). So, yes. Helpful. Beyond polite. They actually *cared*. And that... that's a big deal.
Location, Location, Location! Is it Actually Convenient for Exploring Lyon? Or Am I Going to be Stuck in Tourist Hell?
Okay, this is important. The location is… good. Not *perfect*, but very good. It’s near the city center, within walking distance of some of the major sights (the old town, the Place Bellecour), and public transport is super accessible. It's not *right* in the thick of the tourist crush (thank goodness). It’s near enough to be convenient, far enough to feel… well, not overwhelmed. You can escape the hordes, which, trust me, is priceless. There were a few nights when I walked back from dinner and actually heard… *silence*. Glorious, blessed silence. (Ok, maybe not total silence, but definitely no screaming kids or selfie sticks.) So, yes. Convenient. And a haven.
So, Let's Talk Price. Is it Gonna Make My Wallet Weep? Because, you know, reality.
Okay, the price. Prepare yourself. It's not a budget hotel, let's put it that way. It's on the pricier side. But (and this is a big "but"), you *are* paying for a certain level of luxury, service, and that all-important "je ne sais quoi." Is it worth it? That depends on your budget. If you’re on a shoestring, probably not. If you want a once-in-a-lifetime experience? Maybe. And if you can find a deal (I managed to snag a slightly discounted rate by booking in advance, keep an eye out!), the price tag stings a little less. But honestly, it's worth saving for. I still dream of that bathtub.
Give Me the Rundown: Good, Bad, Ugly? In a Nutshell!
Alright, quick and dirty: * **Good:** Stunning rooms, amazing breakfast, excellent service (mostly), great location (mostly). The vibe is just right. The staff were great! Hotel Near Me Search
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