Divided into three – St Paul to the north, St Jean in the centre and St Georges in the south. Vieux Lyon was once the seat of government and commerce, a place where those of wealth, traders, bankers and minor royalty, rubbed shoulders (or cocked a snook) as they to-and-fro'd between their elegant 15th-17th-century town houses.
More than 300 such mansions are still to be found – including one that today sees service as an Indian restaurant! – scattered about this enclave of very narrow passageways, known as traboules, wherein anyone not on intimate terms with the Fat Pill will have difficulty manoeuvring. The same holds true for cars, especially anything larger than a Twingo that tries to negotiate the tight corners made all the more hazardous by adherents of that popular and widespread French contact sport called 'Parking the car'.
The traboules, hazards notwithstanding, are a fascination not to be missed, incontournables in the local parlance. Built perpendicular to the Saône, they were the solution to lack of sufficient space in which to develop a conventional network of streets, by linking the various buildings together.
No visit to Lyon would be complete without a journey into Vieux Lyon, approaching, preferably, from the north-east, past the Marché des Bouquinistes along the quai de la Pêcherie, over the pont La Feuille and then either forward to place Saint Paul or down along the true right bank of the river.
Here artisanal stallholders offer fine jewellery, paintings, sculptures, fabrics, knitwear and boundless opportunities to improve your colloquial French with a bit of eavesdropping or stallholder banter.