Pentes de la Croix-Rousse

What makes it special

Look first at the buildings. The houses on the slope have tall rooms behind large windows, built for the silk looms inside, which needed the height and the light. The weavers who worked them were the canuts, and their workshops moved up here from Vieux-Lyon in the eighteenth century.

Between the buildings run the traboules, covered passages that let silk merchants carry cloth from one building to the next out of the rain. On the slope they doubled as shortcuts down to the city centre at the Terreaux, which is how you still use them. Most are private homes today, so the stairs you walk through are where residents live.

Make the Cour des Voraces your main stop. Its staircases climb six floors above the courtyard, and the courtyard floor and both staircases are a classified historic monument. The name comes from a radical group of silk workers.

The looms were nicknamed bistanclaques, after the clatter they made. The whole slope is part of Lyon's UNESCO World Heritage site.

Visiting

At the top of the hill, begin on the Place de la Croix-Rousse, where a statue of Jacquard stands in the middle. If you want the museum, go to the Maison des Canuts before you start down.

Take the Escalier Prunelle down to the Cour des Voraces. From there, carry on past the Mur des Canuts and through the Passage Mermet, then finish on the Grande-Côte, with its view across to Part-Dieu.

Enter the Cour des Voraces from Place Colbert, Montée Saint-Sébastien or Rue Imbert-Colomès. At a closed door, look for a small brown plaque reading traboule ouverte au public, then press the general button on the digicode, which usually opens it. Keep heading downhill and the passages bring you out at the Terreaux, where Line C runs back up from Hôtel de Ville - Louis Pradel.

Guided or on your own

The Maison des Canuts runs guided visits of its workshop from Tuesday to Saturday at 11am and 3:30pm, with a demonstration on a nineteenth-century Jacquard hand loom. A visit lasts about 50 minutes, and you collect your tickets at the museum 15 minutes before the start.

On some days the museum visit continues as a guided walk through the Croix-Rousse traboules, downhill. That walk is given only in French. Otherwise the plaques and digicodes make the passages easy to do on your own.

Tips

Go early. Most traboules are open in the morning, and the street doors are often left open then for the bin collectors and the postman.

Some passages are narrow and dim, with uneven steps, so wear shoes with grip. Talk quietly on the stairs.

A Lyon City Card covers the Maison des Canuts, and you choose a guided or self-guided visit at the desk, if spaces remain.