Limited to 492 places

Departure from the Convention Center

Price: $90 per person

Three miles (5km) outside the city of Lyon, on the banks of the river Saône, the “Abbaye of Collonges” stands in all its splendor, offering you a unique welcome.

The sounds of its grand fairground organs, so lovingly restored, will bring thrills and joy to the heart the moment you enter this domain created especially for good times.

Back in 1765, one of Paul Bocuse's ancestors, the wife of the miller of Collonges-au-Mont-d'Or was known for her cooking by the local country folk who brought their corn to the mill. When the Paris-Lyon-Marseille main line railway was built in 1840, running a few meters from where the Restaurant Paul Bocuse stands today, the mill was demolished. The Bocuse family had to move a little way downstream, to a farm once belonged to the monks on the Ile-Barbe. Generations later, in 1921, Paul's grandfather Joseph, married to Marie, one day suddenly decided to sell this establishment and with it went the name of the first family restaurant on the river Saone, the "Restaurant Bocuse".

A few years later, in 1925, Paul's father, Georges Bocuse married Irma Roulier whose parents were restaurateurs owning the "Hotel du Pont de Collonges" (today the Restaurant Paul Bocuse), where Paul Bocuse was born on February 11, 1926.

Georges Bocuse already had a certain reputation for his cuisine but to his great misfortune, since his father had sold the building and name of their family restaurant, he could not give his restaurant his own name. Matters were further aggravated when the restaurateur who had bought Joseph and Marie's business moved into the Abbaye of Collonges, calling it the "Restaurant Bocuse".

We must wait until 1966 for Paul Bocuse who, well-advanced in his professional career as chef - he had won his Meilleur Ouvrier de France title in 1961, was awarded his third Michelin star in 1965 - finally succeeded in buying back his great-grandparents' old restaurant and restoring to it the BOCUSE family name.

Paul named his grandparents' old restaurant the "Abbaye de Collonges" in memory of the monks on the Ile-Barbe; the letters of the BOCUSE family name shine out today from the roof of the restaurant they have now been running for over 50 years.

The Abbaye, with its background of the chef's collection of ancient fairground organs, his passion. In one of these newly-designed rooms in the Abbaye's principal diningroom, "La salle du Grand Limonaire" - stands the most majestic of them all, a "Gaudin" that beats out the music, like an orchestra of 115 musicians.

This organ is the equivalent of an orchestra of 110 musicians and is composed of:
103 Keys
20 Automatic registers
23 Automatic figurines
840 Pipes
80 trumpets
2 Large drums
2 Tambourines
2 Cymbals
2 Castanets
1 Xylophone
1 Metalophone

When the Great War came, the grocery store, wine shop and dancehall was requisitioned in 1915 to take in the wounded from the battlefield. The owners, fearing an invasion by the Germans, decided to wall up the instrument.

Years passed and the organ was forgotten. Until one day in 1966, upon learning what was behind the wall, I arranged to have it opened up. The organ was of course damaged but imagine my joy discovering this musical marvel. It took four years for Marc Fournier to put it back into good working condition. Many parts had to be entirely rebuilt including new automatic figurines custom-made from plane tree wood in Germany.

Paul Eynard, the dedicated organist, with Arthur Prinsen edited a new set of perforated cards of prestigious tunes.

Finally in 1970, my fairground organ stood there brand new, a delight to all those young and old at business and family receptions, giving everyone for a moment that fleeting impression that we are still in the good old days.