Lyon has an architectural feature unique to this city: Traboules. Traboules, which means ‘to walk through’, are narrow passageways usually linked to the courtyard of a residential building, a world apart from the hustle and bustle of the city.
The main characteristics of the traboules include: a path reserved for pedestrians, that crosses one or more buildings; it connects one street to another; an inner courtyard to provide the buildings and the passage with natural light; and a staircase that serves two or more buildings.
The city once had hundreds of these renaissance passageways, but sadly some have been lost to time or are no longer open to the public. Their origin can be traced back to the 4th century, after the fall of the Roman Empire. The aqueducts bringing water to Lyon started to fall, and the city built the first traboules to allow its inhabitants quicker access to the Old Town from the river.
Some 40 are still open to the public, running beneath buildings in the direction of the Saône River.
Later in the 19th century, they gave the city’s silk workers (called ‘Canuts’) direct access to the river, making it quick and easy to transport their silk textiles, while also offering shelter from the elements.
They were also used by the canut workers in the 1831-1848 Canut Revolts, the first worker uprisings of the Industrial Revolution.
Later, during WWII, the resistance used them for shelter and hiding from the Germans during the invasion of France.
Since 1990, an agreement between the City Council and the residents of properties with traboules allows access to everybody from morning to evening in exchange for maintenance, restoration, and lightning. Since nearly all of these passageways are part of residential properties, it’s a good idea to go quietly.
Many were close to our hotel and behind interesting Renaissance doors. Some were locked, so finding ones that were open felt like a kind of treasure hunt.
We reached the end of our search and found ourselves at the city’s fabulous cathedral; a mostly gothic construction built between the 12th and 15th centuries.
The majority of the original stained-glass windows are still here and date to the 1300s.
They had been dismantled and packed away during the Second World War to save them from bomb damage.
The most captivating are the north, south and west roses, as well as the apse’s lancet.
The astronomical clock inside is nine metres tall and was installed in the 1300s.
Under the main clock-face is an astrolabe, added in the 1600s, that can show the position of the earth, sun and moon.
After the cathedral, we walked back into the center of town for some lunch (the hop on/off busses were on lunch break, so why not!). We then hopped on a bus and went back to an area with more street art and a famous traboule named “Cours des Voraces” after the name of the group of weavers who led the revolution of 1848. It houses the oldest reinforced concrete stairwell in Lyon.
This area of the city was also covered in some interesting street art!
Tomorrow, we’re off to Toulouse!
