I wish I had spent more time in Lyon. The countryside around there probably seems boring to you, since you grew up in the city. But coming from America, it's obvious that the smallest village in France is light-years more advanced, more educated, clever and civilized than the country I grew up in. It has its problems of course, but it's paradise compared to most other places I've been.
Funny, slightly dark story about Avignon. I became friendly with a guy there who was a good musician but turned out to be a bit of a...right wing type. National Front. There was a cafe on the square that was a gay club at night, and my girlfriend and I used to have coffee there in the day. One day this guy walked by and said "don't you know what this bar is where you're sitting?" I said, "come on, chill out, sit down." He took some convincing. So finally he sat down and I said, "I know you like Le Pen. How do you feel about sitting in front of a gay bar with an Filipina/Mexican and Jew/Argentine? Are you angry we're in your country?" He said, "as long as you're here because you're interested in France, I'm okay." Later, walking through town, he saw a kid urinating on the front step of an apartment. He shouted at the kid and the kid pulled a knife out. This guy tackled him. Still later we took a bus to the station through the banlieu and saw the desolation - she said, "what have they done to their country?"
Eh. I shouldn't tell these stories on HN. I guess it taught me that life is complicated and to bring it full circle to the cafe question, your view of the world is very relative to where you grew up, in what time period, and what you expect people to behave like.