The Traboule with Lyon

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  Lyon, France
Sunday, September 14, 2008

Our little misadventure with the hire car yesterday meant that we had to spend the morning sorting out travel insurance and exchanging our hire car for one with less dents. A small detour to the Lyon airport and back and we were back on track. We are now the proud drivers of a new Renault Laguna and are hoping for better luck with this one as it is brand new!!
 
First stop was Vieux Lyon, the old town, where we visited St Jean's church. It is famous for its astronomical clock, which displays the dates of religious feast days up until 2019. The square outside the church was abuzz with a ceramic market, and we felt very sorry for the poor man whose market umbrella upended his entire display of ceramics onto the ground.
 
On top of Fourviere Hill, above the old town, are the remains of the Roman town of Lugdunum, which was built by Julius Caesar in 44BC

Walking in the footsteps of Caesar

. The weather continued to be miserable with quite heavy rain, so instead of climbing the hill we opted for the funicular. The Romans continue to amaze me every time I visit a Roman site, from their amazing amphitheatres with perfect acoustics, to their functional drainage systems and aqueducts. This site was equally impressive, with a huge amphitheatre and a slightly smaller one beside it. More interesting to us were the paved roads with the odd groove from a chariot wheel and the remnants of houses nearby.
 
Dominating the top of Fourviere Hill is the Basilica Notre Dame de Fourviere. I have to say, this is the weirdest church I have ever been into. The description by our guidebook as gaudy is correct, but what I found more bizarre is that it is a two storey church. By that I mean there is one church that you enter by ascending stairs, and directly underneath is another complete church, both with high vaulted ceilings and elaborate detailing. We were never able to find out why it had been built this way, but it was very strange. The view from the front of the church out over the city of Lyon was fantastic, and even in the pouring rain we were able to get some great photos of the red rooftops of the old city. Lyon is quite unique in that it has two rivers passing through it, with the Saone and the Rhone coming together in the middle of the town, which I guess is great if you want waterfront real estate.
 
We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around near Place Bellacour, and down the pedestrianised street, Rue de Republique. Our last must-do thing for Lyon was to find the traboules, or covered passageways used by silk merchants. We had read about Lyon being a big player in the silk trade in the the 15th Century

Roman Amphitheatre

. The weavers used covered passageways between buildings to transport their finished cloth, and they can still be found today. Our map had the locations marked but we wandered around the La Criox-Rousse district between the two rivers, looking for these traboules with very little clue what we were actually looking for. Every time we came to the address we would find a large door with a doorbell panel with people's names on it. Confused and a little dejected, we walked across the Saone to the old town to a street called Rue de Juiverie. Here we were rewarded with traboules galore. There are at least 15 on this street alone, and some are accessible to tourists as they have been converted into art galleries and restaurants. Basically they are entrances to the buildings, that become little passageways that weave in between the buildings, and have little side entrances into shops that can't be seen from the street. Once you know they are there you seem to spot them everywhere, as they are recognisable by the arched ceilings of the doorway.
 
Lyon is well-known for being the gastronomic capital of France, and apparently has more square metres of restaurant space than any other city in France. I found this a little hard to believe the night we arrived, as we wandered around the streets near Place Bellacour and couldn't find a restaurant anywhere. Armed with a bit more knowledge of the town after our explorations today, we headed directly to the far end of Vieux Lyon from the Metro station. This part of town is packed with restaurants, all advertising local specialities. We decided on a place called Le Gourmand de St Jean which looked cosy and was filled with locals. This was the dining experience we had hoped to have whilst in Lyon.  Three magnificent courses each, washed down with 2 carafes of Cote de Rhone wine, all for 52 Euro. We managed to stroll home despite our very full stomachs, quite satisfied with our little visit to Lyon.

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Rooftops of Lyon	Rainy day in Lyon	Inside a traboule, a hidden staircase	Entrance to a Traboule

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