Things to do in Lyon: Fourvière, old town, museums
Lyon's sights lie close together and almost none need booking: the basilica, the Roman theatres, the cathedral, the traboules and the parks are free, and you pay only for the museums. The big three are the Musée des Confluences (€12), the Musée des Beaux-Arts (€8) and the Lugdunum Roman museum (€4). Visitors under 18 enter all three free, and Lugdunum is free for everyone on the first Sunday of the month.
The Lyon City Card is sold for 24 to 96 hours. The unlimited 24-hour adult card costs €29.90 and covers 26 museums, one guided tour, one boat trip on the rivers and unlimited travel on the TCL network, funiculars included. Confluences and the Beaux-Arts alone account for two thirds of that price, so the card pays off on a day when you also ride the funicular, see Lugdunum and take the boat; for a single museum it does not.
1Notre-Dame de Fourvière basilica
Photo: twalmedia / Pixabay, Pixabay License
In 1870, with Prussian troops advancing, the people of Lyon vowed to build a church to the Virgin if the city were spared. It was. Building began in 1872, the basilica was consecrated in 1896, and its four towers can be seen from almost every street below; the gilded Virgin beside it stands on the bell tower of the older chapel. The interior is far richer than the white exterior suggests: mosaics cover the walls of the nave with scenes from the history of France and the Church, and a second, lower church lies beneath it.
For most visitors the esplanade next to the basilica is the real reward. The whole city lies below, from the Saône and the roofs of Vieux Lyon to the Presqu'île and the towers of Part-Dieu, and on the clearest days the Alps line the horizon, with Mont Blanc sometimes showing to the east. Behind the basilica stands a slim iron tower from 1894, a small cousin of the Eiffel Tower that now carries transmitters.
Time
1 h to 1 h 30 min
Setting
Both
Best time
Early on a clear morning, or towards sunset; open from 7 am until 8 pm, on Sundays until 9 pm
Getting there
Funicular F2 from Vieux Lyon station to Fourvière
Tip: Ride up and walk down: the paths of the Jardin du Rosaire take you from the esplanade straight to Saint-Jean cathedral. When cloud hangs over the hill, put the visit off; the view is the point. Opening hours are on the basilica's practical page.
Between the Saône and the hill lies one of the largest Renaissance quarters in Europe, built when Italian bankers and merchants made Lyon rich in the 15th and 16th centuries, and listed by UNESCO with the rest of the historic city. Its houses have stair towers, inner courtyards and galleries, and many are linked by traboules: covered passages that cut through the buildings from one street to the next, once used to carry goods dry from the workshops down to the river. The longest runs from Rue Saint-Jean to Rue du Bœuf.
Time
2 to 3 h
Setting
Both
Best time
In the morning, before the main street fills up
Getting there
Metro D or funiculars to Vieux Lyon
Tip: Most traboule doors look like any other front door, so use the tourist office page on the traboules to find those open to the public. People live behind them: keep your voice down.
Free. The public traboules are open daily from 7 am to 7 pm.
Lugdunum, founded in 43 BC, was the capital of Roman Gaul, and its great theatre still sits in the slope of Fourvière, with a smaller odeon beside it. The stone tiers are open to walk across, and in summer they serve again as a stage for concerts and plays. The museum next door is built into the hillside, its galleries descending in a concrete spiral with windows onto the ruins. Its prize is the Claudian Table, a bronze tablet engraved with a speech by Emperor Claudius, who was born in Lyon.
Time
1 to 2 h
Setting
Both
Best time
On a dry day, on the way down from the basilica
Getting there
Funicular F1 to Minimes – Théâtres Romains, or a ten-minute walk from the basilica
Tip: The theatres cost nothing; the museum is worth paying for if you want to understand what you are looking at outside. See the Lugdunum hours and prices.
Theatres free, open from 7 am until 7 pm from October to April and until 9 pm from May to September. Museum €4, with a temporary exhibition €7; Tuesday to Friday from 11 am, weekends from 10 am, until 6 pm; closed Mondays.
At the very tip of the peninsula, where the Rhône and the Saône meet, stands a building that looks like a crystal cloud set down on a concrete base. Inside, the museum tells the story of life and human societies through natural history and anthropology: dinosaur skeletons, meteorites, Egyptian mummies and objects from every continent. The permanent galleries are arranged around big questions, where we come from and who we are, rather than by date. From the terrace and the garden behind, you look straight at the meeting of the rivers.
Time
2 to 3 h
Setting
Indoor
Best time
A rainy afternoon, or the first Thursday of the month until 10 pm
Getting there
Tram T1 to Musée des Confluences
Tip: Families with children will find the most to do here of any museum in Lyon. Check the museum's opening hours before going.
Adults €12, ages 18 to 25 €7, under 18 and students free. Tuesday to Sunday from 10.30 am to 6.30 pm; closed Mondays.
One of the largest open squares in Europe. Its pinkish gravel and lack of shade make it a place to cross rather than linger, with Louis XIV on horseback in the middle and the basilica on the hill as a backdrop. In the western corner a column carries the statue of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, born nearby, with the Little Prince at his side.
Time
20 to 40 min
Setting
Outdoor
Best time
In passing, at any time of day
Getting there
Metro A or D to Bellecour
Tip: From the square, the Pont Bonaparte crosses the Saône to Saint-Jean cathedral in a few minutes; the tourist office page on Lyon gives an overview of the districts.
Laid out in the 1850s on the bank of the Rhône, the park is where Lyon goes to breathe: a lake with rowing boats, long avenues of plane trees, rose gardens, the great glasshouses of the botanical garden and a zoo. Entry to all of it is free.
Time
2 to 3 h
Setting
Outdoor
Best time
A sunny morning; especially beautiful in spring and in October
Getting there
Metro A to Masséna, then about ten minutes on foot
Tip: With children, combine the zoo and the playgrounds by the lake for a relaxed half day. Seasonal hours are on the city's park page.
Free. Park from 6.30 am until 10.30 pm from mid-April to mid-October and until 8.30 pm the rest of the year; zoo from 9.30 am until 5.45 pm or 5 pm in the same seasons.
Lyon's cathedral took three centuries to build, from the 12th to the 15th, which is why its east end is Romanesque and its west front Gothic, with a large rose window over three portals. Inside, look for the astronomical clock by the north transept: when it strikes, its figures move and a rooster crows. The windows of the apse are among the oldest stained glass in the city.
Time
30 to 45 min
Setting
Indoor
Best time
Early in the morning, before the tour groups
Getting there
Metro D or funiculars to Vieux Lyon
Tip: A guided tour adds the details you would miss alone; times are on the tourist office page for the cathedral.
Free. Open daily from 8.15 am, until 7.45 pm Monday to Friday and until 7 pm at weekends. Guided tours every day except Monday, adults €5, young people and children €3.
The town hall closes one side of the square and the fountain by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, who also designed the Statue of Liberty, stands in front of it: a woman driving four rearing horses that stand for rivers. On the south side, a former Benedictine abbey holds the Musée des Beaux-Arts, one of the richest art collections in France outside Paris, from Egyptian antiquities to Rembrandt, Monet and Picasso. Its cloister garden, with statues among the trees, is free and one of the calmest corners of the Presqu'île.
Time
1 h 30 min to 2 h 30 min
Setting
Both
Best time
A morning, any day but Tuesday
Getting there
Metro A or C to Hôtel de Ville – Louis Pradel
Tip: Entry is included in the City Card, and visitors under 18 book their free tickets online; see the museum's ticket page. The Opéra with its glass vault is just behind the town hall.
Museum €8. Wednesday to Monday from 10 am (Fridays from 10.30 am) to 6 pm; closed on Tuesdays and public holidays.
In the 19th century tens of thousands of silk weavers, the canuts, lived and worked on this hill, in tall buildings with high ceilings made to fit the Jacquard looms. Their revolts of 1831 and 1834 were among the first workers' uprisings in Europe. The slopes are a maze of stairways and traboules; the most famous, the Cour des Voraces, has a monumental open staircase that climbs the full height of the building. On the plateau the atmosphere changes to that of a small town, with a long market along the boulevard and the giant painted wall of the Mur des Canuts.
Time
2 to 3 h
Setting
Outdoor
Best time
In the afternoon, walking uphill from the Terreaux
Getting there
Metro C to Croix-Paquet or Croix-Rousse, or on foot from Place des Terreaux
Tip: Climb on foot and take the metro back down, or the other way round if stairs are hard on your knees. The tourist office page on Croix-Rousse has more on the canuts.
For more than eight centuries this was Lyon's hospital, and its long façade with a dome by Soufflot, the architect of the Panthéon in Paris, still dominates the Rhône bank. Restored and reopened in 2018, it now holds shops, cafés and a hotel around a series of arcaded courtyards and gardens open to everyone.
Time
30 min to 1 h
Setting
Both
Best time
In the morning on the way north, or for a coffee in the courtyards
Getting there
Metro A to Bellecour or Cordeliers
Tip: The courtyards offer a quiet shortcut between the Rhône quays and Rue de la République. More on the tourist office page.
Courtyards and gardens free, open daily from 7.30 am.
