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Lyon

Commanding a strategic spot at the confluence of the Rhône and the Saône Rivers, Lyon has been luring people ever since the Romans named it Lugdunum in 43 BC. Commercial, industrial and banking powerhouse for the past 500 years, Lyon is France's third-largest city, and offers today's urban explorers a wealth of enticing experiences.

Best Things to Do

Day Trips

Attractions

Must-see attractions

Musée des Confluences

Lyon

This eye-catching building, designed by the Viennese firm Coop Himmelb(l)au, is the crowning glory of Lyon's newest neighbourhood, the Confluence, at…
Musée des Beaux-Arts

Lyon

This stunning and eminently manageable museum showcases France's finest collection of sculptures and paintings outside of Paris, from antiquity onwards…
Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière

Lyon

Crowning the hill, with stunning city panoramas from its terrace, this superb example of late-19th-century French ecclesiastical architecture is lined…
Lyon Confluence

Lyon

Lyon's race toward the future is personified in this reborn industrial district near the southern tip of Presqu'île. Once a landscape of empty warehouses…
Cathédrale St-Jean-Baptiste

Lyon

Lyon's partly Romanesque cathedral was built between the late 11th and early 16th centuries. The portals of its Flamboyant Gothic facade, completed in…
Musées Gadagne

Lyon

Housed in a 16th-century mansion built for two rich Florentine bankers, this twin-themed exhibition space incorporates an excellent local history museum,…
Place des Terreaux

Lyon

The centrepiece of the Presqu'île's beautiful central square is a 19th-century fountain made of 21 tonnes of lead and sculpted by Frédéric-Auguste…
Opéra de Lyon

Lyon

Lyon's neoclassical 1831-built opera house was modernised in 1993 by renowned French architect Jean Nouvel, who added the striking semi-cylindrical glass…