Built to Be Beautiful

Delegates to this week’s “Earth Dialogues” forum will be meeting at the Palais des Congrès, part of Lyons’ new Cité Internationale complex, designed by Renzo Piano. Cité Internationale also includes a new Contemporary Art Museum and is one of the more recent additions to the city’s 2,000-year

architectural history, along with a renovated opera house by Jean Nouvel, the futuristic Saint-Exupéry Airport station by Santiago Calatrava and even a municipal parking lot by architects Jean-Michel Wilmotte and Daniel Targe and artist Daniel Buren. (For a glimpse, check the inverted periscope in the Place des Célestins.)

Lyons is an architect’s textbook, where the oldest Roman theater in France (circa 1st century B.C.) is only a fossil’s throw from a vast urban-renewal project that will include a science museum by Austrian architects Coop Himmelblau — a dissonantly angular 21st century “crystal cloud” intended to “float” 12 m above the ground.

The best way to see Lyons is to take it from the top. Hop aboard the funicular, locally known as la ficelle (the string) to Fourvière, once the Gallic town of Lugdunum that was the capital of Roman Gaul. From the terrace of the 19th century Notre Dame basilica, on the site of the old Roman Forum, the view follows the city’s progress, from the medieval and Renaissance Vieux Lyons on the banks of the Saône to the narrow 17th and 18th century Presqu’île, or peninsula, between the Saône and the Rhône. On the left is the smaller hill of Croix-Rousse, the 19th century silk worker’s center, and beyond the Rhône the 20th century business district of Part-Dieu.

Vieux Lyons

Best Breakfast: Bernachon,chocolatier.

Jogging: Near the Cité Inter-nationale, the Parc de la Tête d?Or.

Best Markets: On Sunday mornings, the food-and-flower market on the Quai des Celestins, and the artists? and artisans? market across the Saône on the Quai Romain-Rolland.

Necessary Equipment: Walking shoes. Lyons? steep hills and staircases are tough going.

Best Ticket: To anything at the Opéra de Lyon, one of the best opera houses in Europe. Next up: a new production of Ariadne auf Naxos, Feb. 22-March 11.

Top Museums: Musée des Beaux-Arts, Musée des Tissus textile museum, Musée de la Civilisation Gallo-Romain, Centre d’Histoire de la Résistance et de la Déportation.

Grand Hotels: La Tour Rose, for the rooms decorated by the city’s best silk manufacturers, 22 rue du Boef; the Villa Florentine, in a former convent, 25 Montée StBarthélémy.

is an appealing jumble of small shops and restaurants tucked into Italianate pink and ocher buildings that bear witness to Lyons’ 15th and 16th century wealth. The first stock market in France opened here in 1506, and with royal patronage the city became the silk-weaving capital of Europe. The cobbled streets of Vieux Lyons are connected by closed alleys called traboules. Originally just shortcuts up and down the hill, traboules were also used by silk merchants to store their wares and by the Resistance during World War II. Most are privately owned but open to the public — the city tourist office provides addresses and door codes. You can traboule (the word is also a verb) all over Vieux Lyons — the longest passage traverses five houses between 54 rue St. Jean and 27 rue du Boeuf.

The Presqu’île is Lyons’ modern-day business and commercial center, with crowded streets of chic boutiques, antique shops, cafés and restaurants, punctuated by stately public squares — the monumental fountain on the Place des Terreaux is by Auguste Bartholdi, sculptor of the Statue of Liberty. Traboule down from Croix-Rousse to one of the city’s bouchons, simple bistros named after the straw plugs once used as bottle-stoppers. For a taste of the local gastronomic specialty of cervelles de canut (literally, silk-worker’s brains) — fresh white cheese mixed with crème fraîche and herbs — try Garet, Chez Hugon or Le Musée, where the three Laverrière sisters maintain a 40-year family tradition. There’s updated fare at the Boeuf d’Argent, Fleur de Sel and Paul Bocuse’s three brasseries, Le Nord, L’Est and Le Sud. Splurge for haute cuisine at La Tour Rose or la Cour des Loges.

At nightfall, head up to Fourvière or out on one of the Saône bridges, to catch the view when the spectacular Plan Lumière bathes 230 buildings and bridges in multicolored light.