A traboule is a covered passageway cutting through a building from one street to the next, usually through a courtyard and often up or down a staircase. Lyon has around four hundred of them, and about forty are open to the public behind doors that give no indication of what is on the other side.
They were built for the silk trade. From the sixteenth century Lyon was Europe's silk capital, and the canuts — the weavers — needed to move finished bolts of cloth from the workshops on the Croix-Rousse hill down to the merchants by the river without exposing them to rain. The traboules cut straight through the blocks, and the steep hill meant a passage could drop several floors on the way.
The Resistance used them in the 1940s for exactly the reason the weavers had: you can enter one building and leave from a street a hundred metres away, and unless you know the city you will not follow.
Finding them
The doors are unmarked or carry a small plaque. Most are in Vieux Lyon, the Renaissance quarter on the west bank, and on the Croix-Rousse slope to the north. The tourist office publishes a map and several are signed with a discreet lion symbol.
Go quietly. People live in these buildings and the access is a courtesy rather than a right.
The city in layers
Lyon sits where the Rhône meets the Saône and it stacks up in historical order from west to east.
Fourvière, the hill above, has the Roman theatres and the basilica, reached by funicular.
Vieux Lyon, below it on the Saône, is one of the largest Renaissance quarters in Europe and where most of the traboules are.
Presqu'île, the peninsula between the two rivers, is the nineteenth-century city: the squares, the shopping, the opera and most of the hotels.
Croix-Rousse, north, is the silk workers' hill, now the neighbourhood quarter with the best markets.
Confluence, south, is the new architecture district where the rivers meet.
Lyon is also, by common agreement, the food capital of France. The bouchons — small, loud, meat-heavy restaurants serving the offal cuts the silk merchants would not eat — are the local institution, and the city holds a large number of starred kitchens alongside them.
The nine below are grouped by quarter.
Presqu'île and the rivers
The peninsula, central to everything.
InterContinental Lyon - Hotel Dieu occupies the Hôtel-Dieu, a hospital from the twelfth century until 2010, on the Rhône bank, with a spa under the vaults and a dome you can see from across the city. Rabelais worked here as a physician. It is the best hotel in Lyon.
InterContinental Lyon - Hotel Dieu
Presqu'île, Rhône bank · 5★ · $$$$
A twelfth-century hospital with a spa under the vaults
Check availabilitySofitel Lyon Bellecour sits on Place Bellecour with a spa, a pool and the shopping streets outside.
Sofitel Lyon Bellecour
Place Bellecour · 5★ · $$$
Spa and pool with the shopping streets outside
Check availabilityBoscolo Lyon Hotel & Spa occupies a nineteenth-century building near the opera with a spa, a pool and a restrained interior.
Boscolo Lyon Hotel & Spa
Near the opera · 5★ · $$$
A restrained nineteenth-century conversion with a pool
Check availabilityMama Shelter Lyon sits on the Presqu'île with a rooftop, a design-led interior and a livelier ground floor.
Vieux Lyon
The Renaissance quarter, among the traboules.
Cour des Loges occupies four Renaissance houses knitted together around a courtyard with an Italianate gallery, in the middle of the old quarter. It is the most atmospheric building any hotel here holds.
Cour des Loges
Vieux Lyon · 5★ · $$$$
Four Renaissance houses around an Italianate courtyard
Check availabilityCollège Hôtel sits in a converted school building in Vieux Lyon with a theme carried through the rooms and rates well below the landmarks.
Fourvière
The hill, with the Roman city.
Villa Florentine occupies a fifteenth-century building beside the basilica with terraced gardens, a pool and the whole city below the terrace.
Villa Florentine
Fourvière hill · 5★ · $$$$
Terraced gardens and a pool above the whole city
Check availabilityFourvière Hôtel sits in a former convent on the same hill with a cloister, a garden and views over the roofs.
Fourvière Hôtel
Fourvière hill · 4★ · $$$
A former convent with a cloister over the roofs
Check availabilityConfluence
The new district where the rivers meet.
MOB Hotel Lyon Confluence occupies a building in the Confluence quarter with a rooftop, a contemporary interior and the museum a short walk away.
MOB Hotel Lyon Confluence
Confluence · 4★ · $$
Rooftop and contemporary rooms in the new quarter
Check availabilityWhat we have left off
The apartment rentals across the Presqu'île are excluded on the usual basis.
What to do
Walk the traboules with the tourist office map, starting on rue Saint-Jean in Vieux Lyon and the Cour des Voraces on the Croix-Rousse, which is a monumental open staircase inside a building.
Eat in a bouchon, and understand what you are ordering: quenelles, andouillette, tablier de sapeur and salade lyonnaise. The certified bouchons carry a plaque.
Go up Fourvière by funicular for the two Roman theatres, which still stage a summer festival, and the basilica.
See the Musée des Confluences at the point of the peninsula, a deconstructivist building holding natural history and anthropology together.
Come in December for the Fête des Lumières, when the whole city is lit by installations over four nights — it began as a religious tradition in 1852 and is now one of the largest light festivals anywhere.
Practical notes
Lyon has its own airport with a tram into the centre in thirty minutes. Paris is two hours by TGV, Marseille ninety minutes, Geneva two hours.
Spring and autumn are ideal. December has the light festival and fills the city. Summer is warm and quieter as the French leave.
The metro, funiculars and trams run on one ticket and the funiculars are the easy way up Fourvière.
Every hotel bookable in Lyon
Questions people actually ask
What is a traboule?
A covered passage cutting through a building between two streets, built for the silk trade. Around forty are open to the public.
Vieux Lyon or Presqu'île?
Vieux Lyon for the Renaissance quarter and the passages, Presqu'île for the shops, restaurants and easier access to everything.
Is the food really that good?
Lyon is generally regarded as France's food capital, and the bouchons are as important to that as the starred kitchens.
How many nights?
Three. Two for the city and one for a day trip to Beaujolais or the Rhône vineyards.