Pride of Lyon

Leaning from the windows of the building in front of me were the Lumiere brothers, pioneers of the movies, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, creator of the Little Prince, the Emperor Claudius and, suddenly appearing at the door, Paul Bocuse, one of the world’s top chefs, and the only one of this gathering still alive.

This selection of Lyon’s citizens was made possible by the custom of creating elaborate trompe l’oeil murals. La Fresque des Lyonais is wrapped around a wedge-shaped building on the banks of the Saone – and is one the city’s most striking sights.

If you love Paris, Lyon is a great alternative. It compresses all the best elements of the capital into a handy, pocket-sized version, and you can get there easily on the Eurostar in five hours, via Paris or Lille.

The view of Vieux Lyon (the old town) is reminiscent of gazing down from Sacre Coeur, and Le Tour Metallique does a good impersonation of the Eiffel Tower. With an efficient Metro system you can enjoy the excellent shopping and museums, before heading to any one of the 2,000 restaurants, which hold 22 Michelin stars between them.

We decided to orientate ourselves with a walking tour of Vieux Lyon. Well, disorientate might be a better description since the city has a unique system of hidden alleys through buildings called traboules.

Traboules (a contraction of the Latin transambulare – to walk through) were created to keep silk dry as it was moved around the city. The longest traboule passes through five courtyards from Rue St-Jean to Rue du Boeuf. Re-emerging on to the latter, we were yards away from our hotel, the romantic Cour des Loges, converted from an old monastery around a central glass-covered courtyard.

Our room was up a spiral stone staircase in one of the towers. It felt like we were reliving the experience of an impoverished, post-Revolution aristocrat thrown into debtors’ prison, made slightly more comfortable by the installation of a sunken bath, red silk cushions and a minibar.

Between meals in the courtyard restaurant, we explored the history of Lyon through its museums. A Lyon City Card, available from the Tourist Office in Place Bellecour or hotel concierges, gets you into museums, on guided tours and aboard public transport.

The gastronomic highlight was a magnificent dinner at the restaurant of legendary, three Michelin-starred chef Paul Bocuse, to the north of the city in his brightly painted riverside mansion at Collonges-sur-Saone.

There was just time before our departure to take a behind-the-scenes tour of the 19th Century basilica. We climbed the stairs, first to the arched stone gallery high above the congregation for an eagle-eyed view of fabulous mosaics and stone carvings. Then up and up we climbed.

The 300 steps did make me gasp a little, but it was the view of the city sprawled out below which was truly breathtaking.