A Weekend in Lyon

Exploring France's capital of gastronomy

I recently spent a weekend in Lyon, where my sister is currently on exchange. Despite having lived in France on and off for over two years, I had never actually visited the city that is often described as 'la capitale de la gastronomie'. This hadn’t been a deliberate snub on my part. I just never had the opportunity in the past — especially not in 2020, when Covid restrictions and curfews made travelling a logistical nightmare.

So when my sister invited me to stay at her apartment in the Vieux Lyon district, I jumped at the opportunity. Vieux Lyon is near the centre of the city, to the west of the Saône river, one of the two rivers that run vertically through the city, the other being Le Rhône. The part in between these rivers is known as La Presqu’île, or ‘The Almost Island’, as the rivers flanking make it resemble an island of sorts.

Built by Florentines associated with Catherine de Médicis, the Florentine-born Queen of France, Vieux Lyon has an unmistakeably…