For a sensory feast you won't soon forget, walk over west of the Rhône to Les Halles de Lyon, the city's main produce market, especially on Saturday, Sunday, or a holiday morning when the place crackles with excitement. On the left bank of the Rhône on Part-Dieu's Cours Lafayette, the market offers everything from pristine lettuce to wild mushrooms to poulet de Bresse to caviar, from 150 kinds of cheese at the Alain Martinet stand to the Rolls de l'huitre (Rolls-Royce of oysters) at Chez Georges. The salons de dégustation (tasting rooms) are in fact raging restaurants with a joie de vivre hard to surpass in Lyon, or anywhere else. Maison Monestir, le Jardin des Halles, Chez Léon, Au Patio are all good, but Maison Rousseau, with its raised platforms amid the produce for serving oysters and snails with marvelous bread, St-Marcellin cheese, and a white Côtes du Rhône, stands out.
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