Ryleigh Newman in his power wheelchair on the terrace below the Fourviere basilica, with the rooftops of Lyon spread out behind him under a bright blue sky.

Studying Abroad in France: Lyon Uncorked

July 28, 2025 | Travel

In the summer of 2025 I spent a few weeks studying abroad in Lyon, France, through the diplomacy program at FAU's Wilkes Honors College. The trip went by the very fitting name of Lyon Uncorked 25, and for a long time I was quietly sure it would never actually happen to me. Studying abroad always felt like one of those things other people did, not something a wheelchair user from Florida would end up doing in a city stacked on hills and paved with eight centuries of cobblestone. It happened anyway, and it turned into one of the best stretches of my life.

A Classroom Made of Food and Wine

On paper the program was about management and marketing. In practice it taught those subjects through French food, drink, and culture, which is the most enjoyable curriculum I can imagine. Lyon is widely called the world capital of gastronomy, and after a couple of weeks I stopped treating that as a tourism slogan and started treating it as a warning to wear stretchy pants. We would sit down and talk about how a product gets positioned, how a region builds a brand, and how a single meal can carry decades of strategy behind it, and then we would go out and eat the case study. I fully endorse this as a teaching method.

Ryleigh Newman smiling at a restaurant table over a plate of sliced steak, golden frites, and a sauce pot, with a giraffe statue glowing in the dining room behind him.
Dinner as homework. Sliced steak, a mountain of frites, and a dining room with a giraffe in it, somewhere I would happily go back to.

Living in a new country for a few weeks rewires how you think. You learn a city by repetition, by getting lost and then slowly not getting lost, and, in my case, by figuring out which routes my wheels could actually handle. I came home with a notebook full of marketing ideas and a much longer mental list of foods I now miss.

Day One, Down the Cobblestones

I will not pretend accessibility was an afterthought on this trip, because on day one it was the entire thought. The metro elevators were out of service, which is a genuine problem in a city built on hills when the lift you were counting on is the only thing between you and street level. The only way down was a set of steep, genuinely wicked cobblestone streets, worn smooth and uneven by a couple of centuries of traffic. A wheelchair on old French cobblestones is a little like a shopping cart with one bad wheel, except the cart is you and the parking lot tilts downhill. It was easily the most challenging part of the trip, and somehow it was also one of the most fun, because it turned an ordinary commute into an actual adventure.

Ryleigh Newman in his power wheelchair on a narrow walkway above an old stone street in Lyon, with a weathered arched wall and pastel buildings climbing the hill behind him.
The kind of old Lyon street that looks charming in a photo and feels like a roller coaster from the seat of a wheelchair.

I want to be honest about that day without making it sound heavier than it was. It was hard, but it was the good kind of hard, the kind you are already laughing about by that same afternoon. A big part of why it stayed fun instead of becoming a disaster was the staff and my classmates, who treated the cobblestones as a team problem rather than my problem. Nobody made it a thing. They just helped, and then we kept moving.

Up on the Fourviere Hill

Once you are past the cobblestones, Lyon really opens up. We rode the little red funicular up the Fourviere hill, which is the kind of accessible shortcut I learned to love, since it does the climbing so I do not have to. At the top is the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourviere, a white stone landmark that watches over the whole city, and the view from the terrace beside it stretches across every red rooftop in Lyon.

A bright red Lyon funicular tram crossing an elevated track between old ochre and cream buildings, framed by a concrete overpass, on a sunny day.
The red funicular that hauls you up the Fourviere hill. Steep streets are someone else's job for once.

Inside, the basilica is so ornate that you keep tilting your head back until your neck gives out. The ceilings are gold and deep blue, every column is carved within an inch of its life, and the stained glass throws color across the stone all morning. It is the rare building that actually lives up to the photos, and then quietly beats them.

The interior of the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourviere in Lyon, looking up the nave at gold and blue mosaic ceilings, carved columns, and arches.
Inside the Fourviere basilica, where there is no good place to stop looking up.

The Rest of the City

Down in the center is Place Bellecour, with its bronze statue of Louis XIV on horseback, one of those squares so big it feels less like a plaza and more like a small open field that someone paved. My favorite surprise, though, was the Parc de la Tete d'Or, an enormous free park that also happens to have a zoo, which is how I ended up watching giraffes amble around on a study abroad trip that was technically about marketing.

The bronze equestrian statue of Louis XIV on a tall stone plinth at Place Bellecour in Lyon, with a church bell tower in the background under a bright blue sky.
Louis XIV holding court over Place Bellecour, a square big enough to get lost in.
Two giraffes walking beside a tall wooden shelter at the free zoo inside the Parc de la Tete d'Or in Lyon, with green trees and blue sky behind them.
Giraffes at the Parc de la Tete d'Or, the giant free park I did not expect to fall for.

A Day on Lake Annecy

One day trip took us out to Annecy, an alpine town in the foothills of the Alps that I can only describe as fantasy made real. The lake is so clear you can see straight to the bottom, flower-lined canals run right through the old town, and the mountains behind it look like a screensaver someone left running by accident. We took a boat out onto the water, which is its own quiet kind of accessible, since the lake does not care about cobblestones.

The turquoise water of Lake Annecy seen from a boat railing, with a sharply peaked green mountain rising across the lake under a clear blue sky.
Lake Annecy from the boat. The water really is that color, and no, I did not adjust a thing.

The old town is the postcard version of France, with pastel buildings leaning over the canals, geraniums spilling off every bridge, and the Palais de l'Isle sitting in the middle of the water like a stone ship that decided to stay. I parked myself on a bridge with my arms crossed and let someone take the obligatory photo, and for once I did not mind posing at all.

Ryleigh Newman in his wheelchair on a bridge in Annecy old town, with the medieval stone Palais de l'Isle and a flower-lined canal behind him under a bright sky.
On a bridge in Annecy, with the Palais de l'Isle behind me. One of my favorite days of the whole trip.

Turning 21 in France

I turned 21 on July 2, right in the middle of the trip, which is a strange and wonderful place to have a birthday. My trip crew surprised me, and there is something about being celebrated by people you have only known for a couple of weeks that lands harder than you expect. You are far from home, in a country where you can finally order a glass of wine and have it count as part of the lesson plan, and a group of new friends decides to make a fuss over you anyway. That one is staying near the top of the pile for a long time.

Learning Wine at the Cave de Tain

The visit that tied the whole program together was a tour and tasting at the Cave de Tain in Tain-l'Hermitage, the little wine town on the Rhone where the hillside vineyards climb up behind the buildings like stadium seating. Our host went out of his way to make the visit wheelchair accessible, walked us through the whole operation, and then handed me a birthday bottle on top of it, which is a level of hospitality I am still not over.

Ryleigh Newman in his wheelchair looking up at a host in a red vest who is explaining the oak barrels stacked floor to ceiling in the Cave de Tain cellar.
Down in the Cave de Tain cellar, learning that a barrel is doing a lot more work than I ever gave it credit for.

Standing among the barrels, I finally understood why the program treated wine as a marketing subject. A bottle is the end of a very long story. Our host walked us through how the path of the sun over the grapes, the terrain they grow on, the way the fruit gets crushed, the wood and steel it rests in, and the months it spends aging all shape a wine's color, its taste, and the way it feels in your mouth. I had assumed wine was mostly the grape plus a little luck, and it turns out it is closer to engineering with a view.

Rows of tall wooden fermentation vats and stacked oak barrels lining the dim aisle of the Cave de Tain cellar.
The cellar runs back further than the eye wants to follow, wooden vats on one side and barrels on the other.

All of this happened during the brutal heat waves that swept Europe that summer, with temperatures climbing well past anything that felt reasonable, so we learned about the role of the sun in the most direct way possible. We sweated through the explanation and came away with a new respect for vines that survive it every year on purpose. My mom came along on this one, and tasting a real Hermitage red with her, in the place it was made, is the kind of moment you do not plan and never forget.

Ryleigh Newman and his mother smiling side by side at the Cave de Tain tasting bar, with two glasses of red wine and a bottle in front of them and a wall of wine behind.
Tasting a Hermitage red with my mom at the Cave de Tain. Not a bad place to share a glass.

A Few More From Lyon and Beyond

Some of the best parts of the trip do not fit neatly into one section, so here are a few more of them in one place. From the basilica on the hill to the giraffes in the park, the lake at Annecy, the cellar full of barrels, and the birthday bottle I carried home, these are the photos that come closest to what the weeks actually felt like.

Ryleigh Newman and others smiling below the towering carved white stone facade of the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourviere in Lyon, with the sun cresting the rooftop and a clear blue sky.
Below the Fourviere basilica, squinting into a perfect Lyon morning.
The gilded high altar of the Fourviere basilica glowing beneath tall stained glass windows in Lyon.
The high altar at Fourviere, lit by its stained glass.
The bronze equestrian statue of Louis XIV on a stone plinth at Place Bellecour in Lyon under a bright blue sky.
The Louis XIV statue presiding over Place Bellecour.
Two giraffes beside a wooden shelter at the free zoo in the Parc de la Tete d'Or in Lyon.
Giraffes at the Parc de la Tete d'Or, Lyon's huge free park and zoo.
A turreted lakeside chateau on a wooded point of Lake Annecy, with bare alpine peaks rising behind the deep blue water.
A chateau perched on the edge of Lake Annecy.
A canal running through Annecy's old town, lined with pastel buildings, flower boxes, and cafe awnings, with green mountains rising at the end of the street.
A canal threading through Annecy's old town.
Ryleigh Newman smiling on the deck of a boat on Lake Annecy, with the French tricolor flag flying overhead and green mountains across the water.
Out on Lake Annecy, under the French flag.
Stacked oak wine barrels at the Cave de Tain, each end branded with the Cave de Tain crest and a vintage number.
Cave de Tain barrels, branded and stacked to the ceiling.
Ryleigh Newman in his wheelchair holding a bottle of orange wine given to him as a birthday gift in the Cave de Tain tasting room.
The birthday bottle our host sent me home with.
Ryleigh Newman seated beside a large wall map of the Tain-l'Hermitage and Rhone valley wine appellations at the Cave de Tain.
The Rhone valley appellations, mapped out at the Cave de Tain.
A French lunch at an Annecy cafe table, with thick golden frites, a green salad, a pot of aioli, a lemon wedge, and a glass of red wine.
Lunch in Annecy, in what locals rightly call the capital of gastronomy.

Coming Home Grateful

I came back from Lyon with better French, a real appreciation for wine, and a long list of people to thank. The staff handled every access challenge with no drama, my classmates turned the hard moments into good ones, and the FAU Wilkes Honors College diplomacy program ran a few weeks that actually delivered on what it promised. Lyon Uncorked 25 was supposed to teach me management and marketing, and it did, but the thing I will keep is the simple proof that a city full of hills and cobblestones is still a city I get to explore. I just have to be willing to roll down a few wicked streets to do it.

Written by Ryleigh Newman

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