The third largest city in France, Lyon offers visitors unique architecture and ambience, a wide range of hotels, a gastronomic paradise and good shopping.
For many, the city of Lyon is a traffic jam on the A6, one of the busiest motorways in France, and somewhere to drive through as quickly as possible. Doing so is to miss the wonderful sights of this vibrant city which is worth spending some time in.
Lyon in History
In Roman times Lyon was known as Lugdanum and was a major city. Evidence for this can be found in the remains of the Roman amphitheatre on the hill of Fourviere. Since then Lyon has continued to be a major centre of many industries most notably printing and silk making. The inventor of film, Lumiere was a resident and there is a museum dedicated to him.
Geographical Position of Lyon
Lyon is the capital of the Rhone-Alpes region of France and has an almost unique position built on the confluence of two major rivers, the Rhone and the Saone, which create a peninsula on which the major part of 18th and19th century Lyon is built. Dominating this peninsula, the Presqu’Ile (almost island) is the Place Bellecour the site of the guillotine in revolutionary France. The north bank of the Saone is home to the old town.
Vieux Lyon (old Lyon)
This part of the city cannot be missed with its picturesque narrow streets of renaissance houses built in Franco-Italian style with courtyards dominated by open arcades and circular staircase towers. Vieux Lyon is one of the best examples of renaissance architecture in France and has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. An interesting feature of this architecture is the traboules, hidden passageways behind normal doors which pass between the houses of the old quarter at all levels of the building. During the German occupation of Lyon members of the French Resistance used the traboules to evade the Gestapo.
Vieux Lyon is dominated by the hill of Fourviere and the Basilica of Notre Dame de Fourviere. This amazing building which dominates the Lyon skyline was only completed at the beginning of the 20th century and is an extravaganza of byzantine architecture and wonderful mosaics. For those who do not fancy the climb to the top of the hill, there is a funicular railway. In the heart of the old town, the cathedral of St Jean is the true cathedral of Lyon and has some wonderful stained glass and a fascinating ancient clock which not only tells the time but also the days and months.
The modern city of Lyon is a bustling, cosmopolitan city, home to many modern high-tech organisations and companies and to one of the world’s leading suppliers of vaccines, Sanofi Pasteur, which is the modern representative of the historical research of the Institut Merieux and the Institut Pasteur.
Accommodation in Lyon
It is no surprise that Lyon has an example of virtually all the modern hotel chains but for the more adventurous there are many typical French hotels which have far more character. Two immediately spring to mind. The Hotel Royal dominates the Place Bellecour and is a fine example of a typical 19th-century French hotel building but it is completely up to date with all modern facilities. In the heart of Vieux Lyon, the Cour des Loges provides an interesting hotel experience. It has been created from four renaissance houses complete with a central courtyard now glassed over. The decor is stunning and the facilities are superb.
The Gastronomical Capital of France
This city is the gastronomic capital of France and at one time there were more Michelin-starred restaurants in Lyon than there were anywhere else in France. For the true Lyon dining experience search out a typical Bouchon Lyonnais, a small family-run restaurant serving local dishes at economical prices. They are plentiful but for those who do not wish to eat peasant food all that is necessary is to go to the bustling rue Merciere which is lined with restaurants of all types spilling over onto the pavement at lunchtime or on warm summer evenings. Virtually every building is a restaurant but even then at peak times, it can be difficult to find a table.
If your budget stretches to it Lyon is the home of nouvelle cuisine and the home of Paul Bocuse who has a restaurant in a small village just outside the city. It is not cheap but the dining experience is wonderful.
In common with all large French cities, Lyon is a shopper’s paradise with fashion stores on the rue de la Republique on one side of the Place Bellecour and numerous boutiques on the adjacent streets while antique shops can be found in the streets on the other side of the square in the direction of the railway station
