There are many wonderful things to see in Lyon, a city with a vibrant history stretching back thousands of years. Some elements of this history are explored on the distinctive ‘murs peints’ which can be found all over the city. There are over one hundred of these painted walls; impressive works of trompe l’oeil which cover the sides of buildings. I stumbled across the one above, the ‘Fresque des Lyonnais’, which features significant figures from throughout 2,000 years of the city’s history, including Auguste and Louis Lumière, and Antoine de St-Exupéry. Individuals from different centuries converse with each other at windows and balconies, reminding us of the city’s rich creative heritage. In the lower left-hand corner of this wall, there is a painted bookshop…

And here are some of the books for sale, displayed in the window to tempt us inside…

The book titles and names of authors we see here are familiar, but the painted images themselves also play with our sense of reality. These books look tantalisingly real, but the painter reminds us with a few subtle brush strokes that not only are we separated from them by a window, but that the ‘window’ itself is only painted. I was reminded a little of the painted walls of the host’s house in Erasmus’s The Godly Feast. Although the walls in Lyon are not the morally improving images from scripture that cover the walls of Eusebius’s house and garden, they still provoke a similar speculation and wonder at the skill of the painter who renders people and things so life-like that it is as if we could reach out and touch them. Upon seeing the painted walls, one of the guests in Erasmus’s text exclaims ‘Who could be bored in this house?’ In Lyon, it is more a question of ‘Who could be bored in this city?’