Lyon Walking Tour: A Self-Guided Vieux Lyon and Fourviere Route

Lyon is France's great second city, a place of two rivers, Roman ruins, secret passageways, and a reputation as the food capital of the whole country. Its oldest heart lies on the west bank of the Saone, a warren of Renaissance lanes at the foot of a steep hill crowned by a white basilica, and that is where this walk goes. This self-guided Lyon walking tour climbs from the grand squares of the center up through medieval Vieux Lyon to the hill of Fourviere, and it is one of the more rewarding self-guided walking tours you can do, around four kilometers with a real climb in the middle and a view worth every step. Wear good shoes for the cobbles and the hill, bring water, and give the two halves of the old city a slow half day.

Before you set off

Set aside three or four hours, more if you take your time over lunch, which in Lyon is a serious matter best enjoyed in one of the city's traditional little eateries called bouchons. The walk is easy and flat through the center and Vieux Lyon, then climbs steeply up the Fourviere hill, so wear comfortable shoes with grip. If the ascent on foot does not appeal, there is a little funicular railway that runs up from Vieux Lyon to the top of the hill in a couple of minutes, and taking it up and walking down is a perfectly good plan. The hill lanes and stairways can be steep and uneven, so take them slowly. One of the great secrets of Vieux Lyon is the traboules, hidden covered passageways that cut through the buildings from street to street, some of which you can explore, so look for their doorways as you go. And do stop to eat and drink as you walk, because Lyon takes its food more seriously than almost anywhere, and a long lunch or a glass of local wine is part of the experience.

Place Bellecour

Start in the Place Bellecour, one of the largest open squares in Europe and the very center of Lyon, a vast expanse of red gravel between the city's two rivers. A grand bronze statue of the king Louis the Fourteenth on horseback stands at its middle, and from the square you get your first clear view westward across the river to the Fourviere hill, with its white basilica gleaming at the top, where you are headed. This is the great meeting point of the city, busy and open and ringed by handsome facades, a place to get your bearings before you set off. It sits on the Presquile, the narrow tongue of land between the two rivers that holds the modern heart of the city. Take in the scale of the square and the view of the hill ahead, then walk west toward the river Saone, cross one of its bridges, and enter the old town gathered along the far bank beneath the hill.

Saint-Jean Cathedral

Across the river you enter Vieux Lyon and come to the Cathedral of Saint-Jean, the great church at the heart of the old town, standing in its own open square at the foot of the Fourviere hill. Built over some three hundred years, it mixes Romanesque and Gothic styles, and its wide stone facade is worth a slow look, carved with hundreds of little medallions. Its real treasure is inside, an extraordinary fourteenth-century astronomical clock, one of the oldest in Europe, which still chimes and sets its carved figures moving several times a day. The square in front is a lively, open space, a good place to sit and take in the old town around you before you plunge into its lanes. The cathedral marks the start of Renaissance Lyon, the beautifully preserved old quarter that spreads north from here along the river. Walk around the cathedral, then head north into the narrow main street of the old town, one of the finest Renaissance streets in France.

Rue Saint-Jean

The Rue Saint-Jean is the main artery of Vieux Lyon, a long, narrow, cobbled street running north through the heart of the old town, lined with tall Renaissance houses in warm stone, now full of little shops, bouchons, and cafes. This was the grandest quarter of Lyon in the sixteenth century, when the city grew rich on silk and banking, and the merchants and bankers built the handsome mansions that line these lanes. The great secret of the street is the traboules, the hidden passageways that run through the buildings and courtyards, linking one street to the next, originally built to move goods and shelter from the weather, and later famously used by the Resistance during the war. Several are open to the public, marked by small signs, and stepping through an ordinary-looking doorway into a hidden courtyard with a spiral stone staircase is one of the real delights of Lyon. Wander slowly, look for the traboule doorways, and peer into the courtyards. The street leads you north to a pretty old square at the far end of the quarter.