Food markets line the banks of the river at quai St-Antoine every morning except Monday and it's a great experience even if you don't buy anything. Local cheese and charcuterie are plentiful, and the quality and range of produce makes you wish you could abandon homogenous British supermarkets and do all your food shopping like this. Local oysters, freshly picked mushrooms, bread, olives, seafood, sweets, butters - and everything seasonal and colourful. Even a bit of French makes buying things all the more enjoyable.

Quai St-Antoine; Tuesday-Sunday

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Situated on a small square in front of the Celestins theatre, this is a ridiculously good-quality two-star hotel for the price (66 euros for a superior double which has rooms overlooking the quiet square and a really big bathroom). It’s been recently decorated and rooms have comfy beds, nice furniture, individual décor and period features like fireplaces and exposed stone walls. Breakfast is served when it suits you for 6 euros, the staff are friendly but unintrusive and it’s slap bang in the middle of the central Presque-ile district.

Hôtel du Théâtre, Place des Celestins, Lyon;
www.hotel-du-theatre.fr

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Lyon is fantastic for shopping with wide, pedestrianised streets (Rue Victor Hugo, Rue de la Republique) boasting chain stores like Zara, H&M, Go Sport and Primtemps cutting through the centre of the main district.

Just off Place Bellecour is the so-called “golden triangle” formed by Rue Emile Zola, Rue du Président Edouard Herriot and Rue Gasparin, whose boutiques rival Paris for designer shopping. Among Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Max Mara and Cacharel are several affordable shops selling homewares, jewellery, shoes and men and ladies’ clothing.

Lyon is also great for antique shopping: there is the Auguste Comte district, the Cité des Antiquaires dealers, the canal flea market, and plenty of secondhand bookshops and bric-a-brac stalls. Elsewhere, there is a large shopping mall in the modern part of Lyon, Part Dieu, which has 300 shops including Galeries Lafayette.

Shopping
www.en.lyon-france.com/page/p-463/art_id-/;
Antiques www.en.lyon-france.com/page/p-729/art_id-/;

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Lyon’s famous chocolatier is an old-fashioned shopping experience – creative chocolate displays in the huge, gilt-edged windows, bustling ladies behind the counter, black and white tiled floors, wooden counters, weighing scales and shelves crammed with sweets and chocolate products.

Buy some chocolates for yourself or pick up some presents – the coussins de Lyon, chocolate in marzipan, are the local speciality. Bernachon (42 Cours Franklin Roosevelt) is also a renowned Lyon chocolate maker.

Voisin, 11 Place Bellecour
www.chocolat-voisin.com/

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Climb up the hill behind the Vieux Lyon district or get the funicular railway from Place St Jean up to the cathedral at the top. The hill offers great views across Lyon and on a clear day you can even see Mont Blanc (considered by the locals to be an omen of bad weather, apparently).

It’s the Lyon equivalent of Sacre Coeur in Paris, except that this cathedral sort of reminds you of a giant wedding cake. Also at the top of the hill is a metal tower, which looks just like the top of the Eiffel Tower. Reminding yourself that you are in Lyon, not Paris, there are some Roman ruins on the other side of the hill, including an amphitheatre, which once represented the centre of the city.

www.fourviere.org/default.htm

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From the Latin "trans ambulare", these are curious and often gorgeous covered passages that go all through old Lyon and the croix-rousse district. Lyon was (and is) a silkweaving town, and weavers used these passages to move their goods without getting them rained on.

Without the addresses in the links below, you'd never know they were there, and neither did the gestapo...

Sniffing out the traboules is a favourite Sunday activity of locals too! Just mind the signs asking for quiet, these are often private passages.

www.magazine.fr/lyon-cite/LOISIRS/GUIDE/index.html

www.lyon.fr/vdl/sections/fr/urbanisme/cours_traboules_lyon/a_visiter/

www.lyon.fr/vdl/sections/en/urbanisme/cours_traboules_lyon/?aIndex=1

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