The 13 best things to do in Lyon

From watching millennial silk weavers at work on 19th-century Jacquard looms in hilltop Croix-Rousse to admiring Renaissance art and architecture at the city’s Musée des Beaux-Arts, tasting Côtes du Rhône vintages with a sommelier or learning how to craft some of the city’s finest culinary dishes, exploring Lyon is all about living your very best, bon vivant life. Open-air performance beneath the summer stars at Fourvière’s legendary Roman amphitheatre or performance art by young contemporary artists at cutting-edge MAC: whatever you choose to do scales the timeline of Lyonnais history.

For more Lyon inspiration, see our guides on the best hotels, restaurants and nightlife.

• Vieux Lyon
• Presqu’île
• Croix-Rousse
• Confluence
• Rive Gauche

Handsome enough to rival the finest in Italy, the old town is an enchanting made-to-meander labyrinth of medieval and Renaissance townhouses, brick-red cobbled lanes, steep staircases and hidden alleys straddling the left bank of the Saône river. At its heart stands the cathedral, with striking Flamboyant Gothic façade from the 15th century, and a cluster of small house museums.  

Insider tip: Specialist independent boutiques and souvenir shops demanding a mooch line pedestrian streets rue Saint-Jean and rue du Boeuf. Taste and buy traditional brioches and pastries studded with candyfloss-pink praline – a Lyon speciality – at Boulangerie du Palais. Or pair cakes crafted with a contemporary spin and locally roasted Mokxa coffee at fashionable café-pâtisserie Duclef.

Contact: primatiale.fr
Nearest metro: Vieux Lyon
Price: Free

To appreciate Lyon’s unquestionably elegant topography carved out from two hills and two rivers, lurch uphill in the vintage funicular from the Vieux Lyon metro station to Fourvière. Crowned by a kitsch 19th-century basilica (1872-1896) and TV transmitter bearing an uncanny resemblance to a mini Eiffel Tower, this hill was first settled by the Romans in 43 BC. The city panorama from the basilica terrace is brilliantly bird’s eye.

Insider tip: From February to November, you can take a 90-minute backstage tour (€14/£12) of the basilica’s bell tower and rooftop. The stiff hike up 345 steps rewards with a mesmerizing jungle of sculpted turrets, chimney pots and gleaming bronze statues. City views at 360 degrees are unmatched.  

Contact: fourviere.org
Nearest metro: Fourvière
Price: £

Some 130,000 art lovers flock each year – cushions and rugs in hand to combat the centuries-old hard stone seats – to the city’s ancient Roman amphitheatre on Fourvière hill to catch theatre, music, opera, dance and circus performances beneath the stars during Les Nuits de Fourvière. The two month-long arts festival has been one of the biggest dates in Lyon’s cultural calendar since 1946. It typically runs from the end of May or early June to late July.

Insider tip: Headline acts (which has included everyone from Sting to Massive Attack, Arctic Monkeys and France’s much-loved IAM) sell out long in advance, so be sure to book early. Even if it’s close to the time of the festival though, you’ll still be able to get tickets for dozens of other acts. Buy tickets (€12 to €69/£10 to £59) online.

Contact: nuitsdefourviere.com
Opening times: 1 June to 30 July
Nearest metro: Fourvière
Price: ££

Place des Terreaux is the sweet spot. Since 1892 its star turn has been Fontaine Bartholdi, a monumental fountain by New York’s Statue of Liberty maker. Admire France, personified as a fair maiden, hurtling along in a horse-pulled chariot over un café on a café terrace then take a foray through fine art, from antiquity to modern day, at Lyon’s blockbuster Musée des Beaux-Arts.

Insider tip: Squirrelled away within the historic museum complex is a serene cloister garden and, even better, a summertime restaurant and tearoom (open June to September) with art work by French fauvist painter Raoul Dufy and romantic terrace overlooking the former 17th-century abbey. Sunday brunch here is summer hot.

Contact: mba-lyon-fr
Nearest metro: Hôtel de Ville
Price: £

Few dedicated foodies make the pilgrimage to Lyon without dining once chez Paul Bocuse, be it at the late chef’s gastronomic out-of-town restaurant in Collonges-au-Mont d’Or (which lost one of its three stars in 2020, having held them since 1965) or at the recently opened Comptoir Paul Bocuse inside the city’s landmark covered market, Les Halles Paul Bocuse. To sample future talent in the Lyonnais kitchen, mingle with locals over lunch, dinner or drinks and live music at La Commune – an innovative food court that hosts chefs aspiring to open their own restaurant in Lyon. Resident chefs cook up a storm at La Commune for maximum six months, meaning an ever-changing rollcall of epicurean excitement at this unique culinary incubator.

To extend the experience further afield, consider a road trip along a section of the Vallée de la Gastronomie. In Lyon, the gourmet route (385 miles/620km) delves into the secrets behind chef Joseph Viola’s award-winning duck foie gras and sweetbread pâté (think French-posh pork pie) and the city’s distinctive offal-based bouchon (Lyonnais bistro) cuisine.

Insider tip: Sign up for a themed tasting soirée (cheese, wine or cocktails) or cookery class – learn how to make macarons, choux pastry, Paul Bocuse grand classics, Lyonnais cuisine etc – at École de Cuisine Gourmets on Place Bellecour.

Contact: ecoledecuisine.institutpaulbocuse.com
Nearest metro: Place Bellecour
Price: £££

Given it’s magnificent location, inside Lyon’s grandiose medieval hospital-turned-dazzling cultural centre, it comes as no surprise to discover that the Cité Internationale de la Gastronomie inside Grand Hôtel Dieu focuses as much on the importance of nutrition and eating well as both Lyon’s and France’s remarkable culinary heritage. The permanent exhibition also includes a hands-on MianMiam! (YumYum!) play space for kids, and temporary exhibitions focus on a specific world cuisine, product or terroir (that fabulous French word for the earth from which a product comes).

Insider tip: Explanatory panels, info boards and occasional foodie workshops at the Cité are all only in French. To understand what’s what, sign up for a 75-minute guided tour of Grand Hôtel Dieu with an English-speaking guide from Lyon tourist office.

Contact: grand-hotel-dieu.com
Nearest metro: Place Bellecour
Price: £

Gourmet Lyon has sensational food markets and nothing beats a tantalizing  Sunday-morning stroll through Marché de la Croix-Rousse. Jaw-to-jowl canopied stalls and trucks set up shop beneath plane trees on Boulevard de la Croix Rousse six days a week. But it is on Sunday morning (10 am to noon), when the Fanfare Piston brass band belts out tunes from its makeshift stage on the town-hall steps, that the real fun happens.

Insider tip: Once you’re done with drooling over stalls heaped high with fruit, veg, regional cheeses, hand-churned butter, charcuterie and olives, snag a table on the tree-shaded terrace of historic La Soierie – in the biz since 1900 and also known as Grand Café de la Soierie – for a kir (white wine and blackcurrant liqueur aperitif) followed by lunch with locals.

Contact: Boulevard de la Croix-Rousse, 1er
Opening times: Tue & Fri-Sun, 6am-1.30pm; Wed-Thu, 6am-1pm
Nearest metro: Croix-Rousse
Price: £

Lyon’s signature traboules are hidden, dark and sometimes disarmingly dilapidated but the city’s evocative network of secret passages zig-zag to ancient courtyards, stairwells, dazzling wall frescoes and monumental staircases otherwise hard to find. Some date to Roman times, but most were constructed by weavers in the 19th century to transport their precious silks. Celebrated traboules include 27 and 54 Rue Saint-Jean in Vieux Lyon, and at 9 Place Colbert in Croix-Rousse.

Insider tip: Lyon’s insanely efficient tourist office on Place Bellecour has DIY traboule maps and a Traboules app available on the App Store. Guided tours (in English) of Vieux Lyon and Croix-Rousse take in some traboules in each ‘hood. To experience local traboule life, stay overnight at four-star boutique hotel Académie, squirreled away in an atmospheric Vieux Lyon traboule.

Contact: visiterlyon.com
Nearest metro: Place Bellecour
Price: £

The hilltop neighbourhood of Croix-Rousse has been dubbed Lyon’s ‘hill of work’ since the 19th century when silk weavers established their canuts (workshops) here. Most are hipster-chic apartments today with massive windows and soaring, wood-oak beamed ceilings 4m high. At the fascinating Maison des Canuts, watch an original Jacquard loom in action and learn about the gruelling daily life of yesteryear weavers.

Insider tip: Croix-Rousse’s distinctive canut architecture provides the inspiration for the bold oil paintings of Lyon-adopted British artist Charlotte Goldspink. Find her at work in her Croix-Rousse workshop-gallery.

Contact: maisondescanuts.fr
Nearest metro: Croix-Rousse
Price: £

Contemporary Lyon looms large at the Confluence, the city’s futuristic new district constructed on wasteland at the confluence of the Saône and Rhône. The permanent collection at the innovative science and anthropology museum, Musée des Confluence, travels in time, from the Big Bang to endangered animal species and modern mankind, while seasonal exhibitions on the first floor explore anything and everything (from extraordinary beetles to Japanese masked rituals).

Insider tip: Sail to the museum aboard river boat Le Vaporetto; count 20 minutes from the dock on Quai des Célestins near Place Bellecour to the Port de la Darse stop at the Confluence. The same boat hosts gourmet drinks afloat Wednesday evenings; reserve online.

Contact: museedesconfluences.fr
Nearest metro: Tram T1 to Hôtel de Région stop or Vaporetto boat shuttle to Confluence stop
Price: £

You can rely on the line-up of seasonal exhibitions at the Musée d’Art Contemporain to be attention-grabbing, provocative and invariably centred around an entertaining piece of performance art. The museum has a compelling collection of sound works as well as more conventional contemporary art pieces. Post-museum, enjoy a green meander in the city’s largest park, Parc de la Tete d’Or, complete with rose garden, botanical garden, a small zoo, cycling tracks and even that all-essential French boules pitch. Sunday afternoon, half of Lyon is seemingly playing the flaneur here.

Insider tip: A couple of permanent art works outside the Renzo Piano-designed museum can be enjoyed any time of day – or night – for free. Come dark, Maurizio Nannucci’s Blue Klein/Rosa Fontana light installation illuminates the building in eye-popping blue and pink.

Contact: mac-lyon.com
Nearest metro: Charpennes
Price: £

The world’s first motion picture projected to a spellbound paying audience was minted in Lyon in the 1890s and there is no finer place to learn about the pioneering geniuses behind this momentous coup in cinema history than the Musée Lumière. The museum, more dashing and hi-tech than ever following major restoration work in 2023, waltzes visitors through the life and times of brothers Louis and August Lumière. Their family home in Lyon, Villa Lumière (1899–1902), provides a fittingly cinematic backdrop for the many engaging exhibits and short films that unravel precisely their ground-breaking work.

Insider tip: As well as the museum, the Institut Lumière houses a cinema with regular screenings. No French is required to enjoy the monthly ciné-concerts when a live pianist provides musical accompaniment to a silent B&W movie.

Contact: institut-lumiere.org
Nearest metro: Montplasir-Lumière
Price: £

No nocturnal festival bedazzles quite like Lyon’s annual Festival of Lights in early December. Over four days some 2 million visitors pour into the city after dark to gawp in awe at a spelling-binding kaleidoscope of light shows and installations, projected on building facades, fountains, streets, squares and parks – you name it! Al fresco theatre performances, music concerts, pavement cafes and food trucks selling all manner of food and drink ensure an intoxicatingly festive atmosphere. On 8 December locals place lit candles on windowsills to commemorate the Virgin Mary, as they have done since 1852.

Insider tip: Reserve accommodation months in advance. Key venues to catch headline performances include Place des Terreaux, Place Bellecour, Place des Célestins and handsome Place des Jacobins. When the urban crowds overwhelm (they will), take a breather in the illuminated Parc de la Tête d’Or.

Contact: fetedeslumieres.lyon.fr
Nearest metro: Bellecour, Hôtel de Ville
Price: £

Every attraction and activity in this curated list has been tried and tested by our destination expert, to provide you with their insider perspective. We cover a range of budgets and styles, from world-class museums to family-friendly theme parks – to best suit every type of traveller. We update this list regularly to keep up with the latest openings and provide up to date recommendations.