Our digs overlook the River Rhône although to get the full glory, you have to kneel on a table and lean out of the window. Here’s the view right now:

Not Seurat, I grant you, but, if it wasn’t for the houses in between, you’d be able to see the turquoise of the Rhône, behind which there is a sort of office/restaurant complex, behind which there is the Parc de la Tête d’Or. This is where we went today to lick our wounds – and it is magnificent.

The park is massive – think Regent’s rather than municipal. It has lakes and roses and a botanical garden and an orangerie and children’s playgrounds and various cafés and a little train and tricycles and pedalos.

And a zoo. It has a small, free zoo.

I’m not sure how I feel about zoos. In many ways, it seems wrong keeping the animals so far from their natural habitats. On the other hand, this zoo did make a point of explaining how they were, as far as possible, replicating the natural conditions and the role this plays in learning about the animals and in conservation.

And I must admit, animals are awesome.

The enclosures were quite sizeable so sometimes it felt like a life size game of Where’s Wally. Here – try this.

There were a couple of crocodiles which we were convinced were replicas until one of them twitched….

And I was absolutely delighted to see, for the purposes of this blog, one particular animal. Again, I promise you it’s there but you may need your spot-the-ball specs. So, if you’ll join me – after three – a bar for nothing:

A-wimoweh, a-wimoweh, a-wimoweha, a-wimoweh…

On the way back from the park, ActorLaddie stopped at the cash-machine, while I guarded his back armed with a day old baguette. Eat your heart out, Richard Madden.