10 fun facts about Lyon

Let’s start with one of the best known facts on the list: Lyon is an ancient city. It was founded by the Romans in 43 BC, under the name Lugdunum and was the capital of Roman Gaul.

That’s why the city’s heritage is so rich. If you go on a cultural trip to Lyon, you’ll find landmarks from all eras, from the ancient Roman theatre to the modern Confluence district. If you come to live there, thanks to the historical diversity of the districts, you are sure to find a place to suit your taste.

If you love impressive paintings on large exterior walls, Lyon is the place to visit in France. Indeed, it’s home to more than 100 murals created by the CitéCréation collective since the 1980s.

Some of them are particularly remarkable, such as the “Fresque des Canuts”, in the Croix-Rousse district. With its 1200 m², it’s the largest mural in Europe. It was originally painted in 1987 and has since been updated several times to reflect the changes in the area.

Another must-see is the Urban Museum Tony Garnier. There, you will find 25 impressive murals on the sides of residential buildings.

Did you know that the first film was shot in Lyon? It was made by the Lumière brothers, with their invention: the cinématographe, one of the first cameras in the world. What did this film show? It’s actually a very short film of less than a minute, that shows their workers leaving the factory. Hence the name “Workers Leaving The Lumière Factory in Lyon”. An impressive thing to see, back in 1895, when it was made and shown to the public!

Today, the street where the film was shot is called “rue du premier film” (first film street) and the Lumière brothers’ villa is a museum.

The Parc de la Tête d’Or is a large urban park in the middle of the city and a local’s favourite for a nice Sunday stroll in nature. It’s so big that it includes a lake and even a zoo, which is impressive enough, but it’s also known for the legend that gave it its name.

Parc de la Tête d’Or means Park of the Golden Head. Why is that? The legend goes that long before the park was created, crusaders buried a treasure there in the Middle Ages, which included a golden head of Jesus Christ. Such treasure has never been found, but the legend lives on.

The abode of chaos… Now, that’s an intriguing name, reminiscent of a film villain’s lair, isn’t it? This is one of the most peculiar places near the city and a bit of an acquired taste.

It’s actually an open-air museum opened in 1999 by sculptor and plastic artist Thierry Ehrmann. As its name suggests, the place has a chaotic, almost post-apocalyptic appearance. Covering an area of 9,000 square metres, it houses 6,300 works of contemporary art, including 4,500 sculptures made of raw steel, some of which weigh several hundred tonnes.

If you’ve lived in Lyon for years and still haven’t heard of it, now is the time to discover this strange place!

Walking through the streets of Lyon, you can’t help but notice its magnificent architecture and ancient heritage. But did you know that there’s a lot going on beneath the surface? For example:

• The Saint-Clair Water Treatment Plant, decommissioned in 1976, can be visited and is best known for its iconic underground basin, a large vaulted room half filled with water.
• The ossuary of the Crypte des Brotteaux, for a more chilly visit. It is located under the Chapelle Sainte-Croix. It contains the bones of counter-revolutionaries who died during the siege of Lyon in 1793.

Lastly, although they cannot be visited, the arêtes de poisson (fish bones) are one of Lyon’s greatest secrets. They are 1.4 kilometres of tunnels dug in the 1st century, but for more than a millennium they were completely absent from the records, mentioned only in 1651, then in 1776, and not really explored and studied until the mid-18th century. Their rather recent discovery and the fact that entry is forbidden give them a thick aura of mystery.

UNESCO World Heritage sites can be very diverse. In the case of Lyon, the zone includes entire districts! To be precise, this zone, created in 1998, includes:

• The Fourvière Hill
• The Old Lyon
• The heart of the peninsula
• The Croix-Rousse hill

This is one of the best ways to show the importance of Lyon’s heritage! If you live in Lyon, you could be living in a UNESCO World Heritage Site without even knowing it!

The Croix-Rousse is one of Lyon’s most iconic districts, with its hillsides offering great views of the city. Did you know that the symbol of this area is… a big rock? Commonly known as the “gros caillou” (“big pebble”), it was discovered in 1861 during the construction of the funicular railway. It’s actually an glacial erratic that was carried there by a glacier around 140,000 years ago. Never destroyed or removed from the city, it has since become part of the district’s identity.

It’s both a secret and something that’s well-known: Lyon is full of hidden passageways that silk workers used to cross to move their products around fast. They are called traboules and are nowadays one of the best known features of the city. On the other hand, because they are secret, you never know when you might come across one of the 300 or so hidden in the old streets of Vieux Lyon, on Fourvière Hill and on the peninsula.

Most of them are on private properties and are closed to the public, but visits are organised to discover many of them. If you like the idea of exploring secret passages in one of France’s major cities, you should definitely book a tour.

Let’s end this list with an oddity that looks like nothing at first.

If you go for a walk along the Saône, you may view the maison Brunet. At first glance, the building may not look particularly noticeable, surrounded by other historic buildings, but then you notice there’s something jarring about the way it stands out, about its reddish colour.

But its strangest feature is pretty much invisible if you don’t know about it. In fact, it was built according to the numbers of the calendar. What does that mean? Well, for example:

• It has as many windows as there are days in a year: 365
• It has as many floors above the ground floor as there are days in a week: 7
• It has as many flats as there are weeks in a year: 52
• It has as many entrances as there are seasons in a year: 4

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