Lyon

Lyon and Marseille both claim to be France's "second city." In terms of size and industrial importance, Marseille probably deserves that title. But for tourist appeal, Lyon is the clear winner. The city's speed and scale are human in ways that Paris may have lost forever. Lyon has its share of historic buildings and quaint traboules, which are the passageways under and through town houses dating from the Renaissance (in Vieux Lyon) and the 19th century (in La Croix Rousse). Originally designed as dry, high-speed shortcuts for silk weavers delivering their wares, these passageways were used by the French Resistance during World War II to elude German street patrols.

The city's setting at the confluence of the Saône and the Rhône is a spectacular riverine landscape overlooked from the heights to the west by the imposing Notre-Dame de Fourvière church and from the north by the hilltop neighborhood of La Croix Rousse. Meanwhile, the Confluence Project at the southern tip of the Presqu'île, or peninsula, the land between the Saône and the Rhône, has reclaimed (from the rivers) nearly a square mile of center-city real estate that is gradually becoming parks, business, and cultural sites. Another attraction is Lyon's extraordinary dining scene—the city has more good restaurants per square mile than any other European city except Paris.

Lyon's development owes much to its riverside site halfway between Paris and the Mediterranean, and within striking distance of Switzerland, Italy, and the Alps. Lyonnais are proud that their city has been important for more than 2,000 years: Romans made their Lugdunum (the name means "hill or fortress of Lug," the supreme deity of Celtic mythology"), the second largest Roman city after Rome itself, capital of Gaul around 43 BC. The remains of the Roman theater and the Odéon, the Gallo-Roman music hall, are among the most spectacular Roman ruins in the world. In the middle of the city is the Presqu'île, a fingerlike peninsula between the rivers where modern Lyon throbs with shops, restaurants, museums, theaters, and a postmodern Jean Nouvel-designed opera house. West of the Saône is Vieux Lyon (Old Lyon), with its peaceful Renaissance charm and lovely traboules and patios; above it is the old Roman district of Fourvière. To the north is the hilltop Croix Rousse District, where Lyon's silk weavers once operated their looms in lofts designed as workshop dwellings, while across the Rhône to the east are a mix of older residential areas, the famous Halles de Lyon market, and the ultramodern Part-Dieu business and office district with its landmark gratte-ciel (skyscraper) beyond.