Cath and I went to the immobilier today to start our search for a more permanent home.

We went to the Expat Agency – recommended by Euronews – and talked about what sort of flat we were looking for.

And of course we discussed Le dossier – the folder of documents you have to put together for potential landlords.

It includes: work contract, residency contract, last two years of tax bills in England for both of us, utility bill for house in London, passport, visas, marriage certificate, three French payslips and my P45. I think that’s it. Oh and our French bank details.

Amazingly I think we had it all so the next day we sent it off in the hope it satisfies the requirements and the house hunt can begin.

Today we went to see a few other areas worthy of consideration for our future home. A colleague had mentioned how the area at the top of La Croix Rousse was worth a visit. She said it had a nice village community feel to it so off we went to see for ourselves.

Un peu d’histoire. La Croix Rousse is a hill in Lyon famous as the home of the city’s silk workers – known as les canuts.

They endured poor working conditions and in 1831 staged a revolt against the price of silk. The canuts came down into the city from les pentes- the slopes of La Croix Rousse – where they had their workshops and captured the town hall

There were further revolts but the area still has a bohemian feel to it. It is littered with traboules – which les canuts used to transport their silk under cover from the rain and prying eyes.

My colleague was right – it is a nice part of Lyon with nice bars – even if they insist on speaking to us in English!

Next stop was the Monte d’Or – further out of town and very quiet and quite posh. We went to St Cyr au Monte d’Or.

And then on to St Didier – another village on the Monte d’Or.

We saw some lovely looking houses and one with a huge swimming pool! Might be out of our price range but also feels a bit too far out of Lyon for us.

At least we can give the immobilier some options.

As we begin to start looking at more permanent homes, we went to have a look around a town, on the hillside opposite Euronews, called Sainte-Foy-les-Lyon.

It was a very nice suburb and was very quiet. But it has some great views of Lyon – you could even see the green cube.

St Foy – or St Faith – was murdered by the Romans for refusing to carry out pagan sacrifices in around 287BC in Aquitaine. She was tortured to death with a red hot brazier. But if you can look past that, the neighbourhood seemed quite nice.

We then drove down into the centre of Lyon. It took about five minutes until we were right in the heart of the city.