LYON · FRANCE
Two rivers, three hills, and the kitchen that runs France.
Renaissance traboules in the old town, bouchon dinners on slate menus, Saône cruises under Fourvière, and Beaujolais an hour up the road. The UNESCO city travellers come for, with the regions you can drink at the source.
Only in Lyon
Three things you can’t do anywhere else.
Walking tours, wine tasting and river cruises run in every European city. These three don’t. The covered passages, the bouchon room, the Beaujolais day. Plan the rest of the trip around them.
Behind the doors
Walking the Traboules
Five hundred covered passageways thread the Renaissance courtyards of Vieux Lyon and the silk-weaver lanes of Croix-Rousse. The doors look unmarked from the street. Most travellers never know they're there. A local guide turns the right handle and you cross a city block through someone's vaulted hallway.
- 1 Lyon: Private Walking Tour of “Traboules” in the Old Town
- 2 Lyon Big Traboules in Little City Stories from the Past Private Guided Tour
- 3 Lyon: Private Traboules Tour – Hidden Passages
Inside the bouchon
Dinner in a Bouchon
A bouchon is to Lyon what the trattoria is to Bologna — an owner-cooked dining room with checked cloths, slate menus, and dishes that don't quite exist elsewhere. Quenelles de brochet. Andouillette. Tablier de sapeur. Tarte aux pralines. The pots have been on the same stoves for forty years.
- 1 Food Tour in Lyon – A Full Taste of France by Do Eat Better
- 2 Lyon Old Town Food Tour with 6 French Delicacies & Fine Wine
- 3 Lyon Sunset Food Tour – A Full Taste of France by Do Eat Better
Out the door
Beaujolais from the source
Forty-five minutes north of Place Bellecour the Beaujolais hills begin: ten named Crus, the golden-stone villages of the Pierres Dorées, gamay vines on south-facing slopes. The wine you order in Lyon was bottled an hour away. The day trip is the standard Lyonnais weekend out.
- 1 From Lyon: Golden Stones Beaujolais Wine Tasting Tour
- 2 Taste Wine in Lyon: Burgundy, Beaujolais, Rhône, and more
- 3 Beaujolais wine tour from Lyon half day
The first afternoon
If you have one afternoon in Lyon.
The single experience travellers book more than any other in Lyon. Short, on the river, and the easiest way to see the city laid out below the basilica before you choose what to do with the rest of the trip.
Lyon’s headliners
Lyon’s Most Popular Experiences
Saône river cruises, bouchon dinners, traboule walks, Beaujolais day trips. The days travellers don’t leave Lyon without.
By quartier
A hill, a peninsula, or a Renaissance lane.
Vieux Lyon for the traboules. Croix-Rousse for the silk-weaver hill. Presqu’île for shopping and the long Lyonnais lunch. Fourvière for the basilica and the Roman ruins above the river.
By experience
Or pick how you want to spend the day.
Food tour if you came for the cuisine. Traboule walk if you came for the secret city. Wine tasting if you came for Beaujolais. Bouchon dinner, river cruise, cooking class, Croix-Rousse silk lanes, or a ghost tour after dark.
If you came for the food
Bouchons, markets, and the praline tart.
Bouchon dinners on the cobbles of Vieux Lyon, market crawls at Les Halles Paul Bocuse, evening walks through Croix-Rousse with quenelle stops along the way. If we had to send a first-time visitor to three, these would be it.
After dark, behind the doors
The city behind the courtyard doors.
Lyon hides more than it shows. Traboules through Vieux Lyon and the silk hills of Croix-Rousse, ghost stories from the canut uprisings, theatrical evenings under streetlamp. Three picks for the half-hidden Lyon.
Out of the city
From Lyon, in under two hours.
Lyon’s geography makes it a launching point for four of France’s most-named regions. The Crus of Beaujolais 45 minutes north. Côte-Rôtie and Condrieu an hour south on the Rhône. Annecy’s alpine lake at 90 minutes east. The medieval village of Pérouges at 40.
A day in the vineyards
Beaujolais & the Côtes du Rhône.
Lyon sits between two of France’s most-named wine regions. Beaujolais and its ten Crus to the north. Côte-Rôtie and Condrieu on the steep slopes south. Our shortlist for picking up a bottle at the source.
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