Lyon does not boast, but it is proud. Rightly so, this is the city with the most Michelin-starred street in the country (Rue du Bœuf, visit with your wallet full and your belly empty), excellent restaurants serving everything from fusion cuisine to street food, and a booming calendar of festivals held in former SNCF workshops.
It keeps you well watered: two rivers and an abundant supply of wine, but it’s all the greenery that makes it so liveable. Visit for a long weekend minimum to oxygenate in France’s largest urban park, to climb up to Fourvière Basilica, which seemingly sprouts out of a mass of shrubbery on the hill, or to cycle part of an urban network of hundreds of kilometres of bike lanes shaded by trees along the banks of the River Rhône.
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This guide was recently updated by Anna Richards, a writer based in Lyon. At Time Out, all of our travel guides are written by local writers who know their cities inside out. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines. This guide includes affiliate links, which have no influence on our editorial content. For more information, see our affiliate guidelines.
Dining and Cooking