Lyon: France’s gourmet capital
I’ve just taken Lyon’s cable car up to the top of Fourvière Hill, the perfect spot for a bird’s-eye view over this majestic city. The ancient funicular dates back to 1878, but has recently been renovated with gleaming new coaches, a little like the city itself, which is going through a renaissance, suddenly staking its place as one of Europe’s hot new weekend hideaways. Lyon boasts both Unesco World Heritage status and cutting-edge architecture by the likes of Renzo Piano, Jean Nouvel and Santiago Calatrava. Traditional bistros are booming, alongside a new generation of creative young chefs in elegant fine-dining restaurants.
Culture lovers can choose between Old Masters displayed at the Museum of Fine Arts and avant-garde installations that regularly transform the Museum of Contemporary Art. Throughout the year, there’s always a surprising event energising Lyon, from biennales dedicated to dance, music and art, a cinema festival, classical concerts or techno raves, culminating in the famous Fête des Lumières at the beginning of December, when four million visitors marvel at the city spectacularly lit up for four nights.
Looking down, it’s clear how Lyon has logically evolved from the grandiose Roman ruins that mark its beginnings up here on the hill, running below to the bank of the Saône River with the grand mansions of medieval Vieux Lyon, and across to the baroque splendour of the Presqu’île neighbourhood. Then the metropolis stretches from the other side of the mighty Rhône River to the modern, 20th-century business quarter of La Part-Dieu and a whole new city-of-the-future, under construction at Confluence, where the Rhône and Saône merge.
The Romans rapidly made Lugdunum the capital of one of their Gaulish provinces, and if the French had followed their famed Cartesian logic, then Lyon, not Paris, would still be the French capital today, perfectly positioned in the centre of France’s “hexagon”. But it is only now that La Ville des Gones – The Kids’ City, as Lyon is known – is emerging from the shadow of Paris to become France’s fashionable new destination.
A local guide, Jérôme Fayet-Trevy, tells me that “tourism has suddenly taken off here. Lyon is being discovered by both the French themselves and foreign visitors, and I suspect we Lyonnais are all rather perplexed by this. Tourists used to be concentrated in Vieux Lyon, the historic centre, but now they realise that this is more than a day-trip destination and that it is worth taking time to explore the whole city.”
The one thing that everyone agrees on is that Lyon is France’s capital of gastronomy, and I decide to head straight off on a foodie pilgrimage to the flagship restaurant of the world-famous chef Paul Bocuse. Lyon may be the birthplace of the likes of Le Petit Prince author, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and the Lumière brothers, inventors of modern cinema, but the 88-year-old chef towers over everyone. You can book a table in one of his numerous, reasonably priced brasseries dotted all over the city, or the new gourmet restaurant of his cooking school, while all of Lyon meets for weekend shopping in the teeming food market, Les Halles Paul Bocuse (102 Cours Lafayette; www.hallespaulbocuse.lyon.fr), a cornucopia of stalls selling foie gras, oysters, truffles, cheeses and irresistible macaroons. You can even take a selfie of yourself with the great man – not in person, but in front of his mural at Place Saint-Vincent, probably the most-photographed of the 200 evocative frescoes that decorate the city.
I’ve just taken Lyon’s cable car up to the top of Fourvière Hill, the perfect spot for a bird’s-eye view over this majestic city. The ancient funicular dates back to 1878, but has recently been renovated with gleaming new coaches, a little like the city itself, which is going through a renaissance, suddenly staking its place as one of Europe’s hot new weekend hideaways. Lyon boasts both Unesco World Heritage status and cutting-edge architecture by the likes of Renzo Piano, Jean Nouvel and Santiago Calatrava. Traditional bistros are booming, alongside a new generation of creative young chefs in elegant fine-dining restaurants.
Culture lovers can choose between Old Masters displayed at the Museum of Fine Arts and avant-garde installations that regularly transform the Museum of Contemporary Art. Throughout the year, there’s always a surprising event energising Lyon, from biennales dedicated to dance, music and art, a cinema festival, classical concerts or techno raves, culminating in the famous Fête des Lumières at the beginning of December, when four million visitors marvel at the city spectacularly lit up for four nights.
Looking down, it’s clear how Lyon has logically evolved from the grandiose Roman ruins that mark its beginnings up here on the hill, running below to the bank of the Saône River with the grand mansions of medieval Vieux Lyon, and across to the baroque splendour of the Presqu’île neighbourhood. Then the metropolis stretches from the other side of the mighty Rhône River to the modern, 20th-century business quarter of La Part-Dieu and a whole new city-of-the-future, under construction at Confluence, where the Rhône and Saône merge.
The Romans rapidly made Lugdunum the capital of one of their Gaulish provinces, and if the French had followed their famed Cartesian logic, then Lyon, not Paris, would still be the French capital today, perfectly positioned in the centre of France’s “hexagon”. But it is only now that La Ville des Gones – The Kids’ City, as Lyon is known – is emerging from the shadow of Paris to become France’s fashionable new destination.
A local guide, Jérôme Fayet-Trevy, tells me that “tourism has suddenly taken off here. Lyon is being discovered by both the French themselves and foreign visitors, and I suspect we Lyonnais are all rather perplexed by this. Tourists used to be concentrated in Vieux Lyon, the historic centre, but now they realise that this is more than a day-trip destination and that it is worth taking time to explore the whole city.”
The one thing that everyone agrees on is that Lyon is France’s capital of gastronomy, and I decide to head straight off on a foodie pilgrimage to the flagship restaurant of the world-famous chef Paul Bocuse. Lyon may be the birthplace of the likes of Le Petit Prince author, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and the Lumière brothers, inventors of modern cinema, but the 88-year-old chef towers over everyone. You can book a table in one of his numerous, reasonably priced brasseries dotted all over the city, or the new gourmet restaurant of his cooking school, while all of Lyon meets for weekend shopping in the teeming food market, Les Halles Paul Bocuse (102 Cours Lafayette; www.hallespaulbocuse.lyon.fr), a cornucopia of stalls selling foie gras, oysters, truffles, cheeses and irresistible macaroons. You can even take a selfie of yourself with the great man – not in person, but in front of his mural at Place Saint-Vincent, probably the most-photographed of the 200 evocative frescoes that decorate the city.
