Question 1

Getting Around

Accepted Answer

Lyon's TCL network runs the metro, trams, buses and funiculars, and a single ticket is valid for one hour including changes. A single ticket was €2.10 and a 24-hour pass €6.90 in the fare year that began in September 2025. Fares may have changed since, so check before you go. A ticket bought on board was €2.60. You can also pay by tapping a bank card. After three trips in a day the charge is capped at the price of the 24-hour pass. Funicular F2 runs from Vieux-Lyon metro station, on line D, up to Fourvière, and a funicular return ticket was €3.60. Walking up from Vieux-Lyon through the Rosary Gardens takes about 25 minutes.

Question 2

What to Eat

Accepted Answer

Lyon's traditional restaurants are called bouchons, and their menus are built on local specialties. Dishes on bouchon menus include pike quenelles and andouillette sausage. Tablier de sapeur, which translates as sapper's apron, is another dish to look for on a bouchon menu. For dessert, look for praline tart or rum baba.

Question 3

Tipping and Currency

Accepted Answer

In France, tax and a 15 percent service charge are included in almost all restaurant prices. An extra 2 to 3 percent, or the coins from your change, is customary when a meal has been especially good. Taxi drivers generally get 10 to 15 percent of what the meter shows. France uses the euro.

Question 4

Fourvière, the Roman Theaters and the Museums

Accepted Answer

The basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière is free to enter and open every day from 7 am, closing at 8 pm (9 pm on Sundays). The crypt is open from 8 am to 6:30 pm. The esplanade on the north side of the basilica looks out over the old rooftops, the peninsula and, on some days, as far as the Alps. The Roman theaters on Fourvière hill are open every day from 7 am, until 9 pm from May 2 to September 30 and until 7 pm from October to April. The Lugdunum museum, on the same site, is closed on Mondays. The Musée des Confluences is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10:30 am to 6:30 pm. Full-price admission was €12 in October 2026; check before you go. The Festival of Lights fills four days around December 8 each year and draws some two million people.

Question 5

History

Accepted Answer

Lyon began as Lugdunum, the Roman capital of the Three Gauls. Ancient texts use the name Lugdunum from the 2nd century BC, and it is read as fortress of light or as hill of the god Lug. Plancus, a former general of Julius Caesar, made its status as capital official in 43 BC. Lugdunum peaked in the mid-2nd century AD. Each year the sixty Gaulish tribes came to its sanctuary to pledge loyalty to Rome. In 177 AD 48 Christians were arrested. Many were martyred, Saint Blandine among them, and she is now the city's patron saint. Lugdunum ceased to be the capital in 297 AD, and people left Fourvière hill for the banks of the Saône. A gilded statue of the Virgin was inaugurated on Fourvière on December 8, 1852, and residents put lights on their windowsills that night, the origin of the Festival of Lights. The basilica's first stone was laid in 1870, and it was consecrated in 1897.

Question 6

Traveling with Family

Accepted Answer

Children up to age 10 travel free on Lyon's public transport. Children under 4 need no ticket. Those aged 4 to 10 need a free pass, issued online or at a TCL office on proof of identity, so ask before you rely on it for a one-day visit. The funicular to Fourvière saves a 25-minute walk up the hill. The garden of the Musée des Confluences is open to everyone and leads to the point where the Rhône and the Saône meet. On Fourvière's esplanade there is a tactile model of the city, and the public toilets there are open from 8 am to 9 pm.

Question 7

Accessibility

Accepted Answer

Every Lyon metro station except Croix-Paquet is accessible, as are the funiculars, the trams and their stops, and all buses. An elevator at the funicular exit serves the Fourvière site. Another, reached from the esplanade, goes to the basilica and the crypt between 9 am and 6:30 pm. Wheelchairs enter the basilica from either side, and the western doors are 80 cm wide. Rooftop tours of the basilica mean 345 steps and no elevator, and wheelchairs cannot get through the Rosary Gardens. Check the TCL website for elevators and escalators that are out of service.

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