We will be visiting Lyon over Easter weekend in 2018. Can anyone recommend a hotel? I'd like to be able to walk to sites, though I understand public transport is very good. Would you recommend staying near the train station?
Also, we'd love some suggestions on things to do on Easter Sunday and Monday, given the inevitable closures.
Three questions:
What are your interests?
What "sites" are you interested in seeing?
When you refer to "the train station," which train station would that be? Lyon has several. Two main ones, but several minor ones.
Our travel agent recommended a hotel hear the Gare de Lyon-Perrache. We want to see Vieux Lyon/Old Town, the traboules, Parc de la Tete d'Or, roman theaters, take the funicular to the Basilique Notre Dame de Fourviere. Our daughter will be studying at the Lumière University Lyon 2.
I stayed very near Perrache at the Campanile but being a bit farther north on Presqu'ile (sp?) would be more convenient for sightseeing. You could run into some chilly, wet weather around Easter (and I suspect walking across the bridges will be windy), so I think you'd appreciate being nearer the Vielle Ville. The Perrache area does have you close to the Textile museum and not a bad walk from the Resistance and Deportation Museum.
Depending on where you arrive from, being near Perrache itself may not be particularly advantageous. Many of the trains stop only at the main station, Part Dieu, though there are pretty frequent local trains between the two. I took the tram from my hotel to Part Dieu just two days ago and was surprised at how long it took, given the modest distance. All of my trains (from Toulouse, to and from Albi, to and from Amnecy, to Nancy) stopped at Part Dieu; I don't think any stopped at Perrache.
Albi is a handsome city about an hour away by train. You can check on closures there; you might get lucky. Active churches in both cities will be open but will likely have a lot of time devoted to masses that weekend.
Lyon is a a very pretty city. If the weather cooperates you cand spend a lot of enjoyable time just wandering around. The Beaux-Arts Museum is very good and rather large. It is closed on Tuesdays and holidays. I don't know whether Easter Monday is a holiday for this purpose.
My daughter and I stayed at the Okko Hotel Pont Lafayette. We loved it . Rooms are small ( we paid for the lowest catergory room so perhaps others are larger) but immaculate, and nice big walk in shower and modern bathroom. Only negative was no proper closet just a hanging rack , we only stayed a few days so that was fine for us.
Breakfast is included.. AS WELL AS a great cocktail hour that we made our dinner a few times.. you get a glass of wine free and they put out a spread of appetizers . We would eat soup, salad, some cheeses and bread ,this was great when we were exhausted after a long day out. The dining room also has two fridges stocked with sodas, waters, yogurts ,, all FREE for you to take when ever you want.
The hotel is in an excellent location.. facing the river, and just a five minute walk across the bridge takes you into Vieux Lyon.. And on some days there is a great open air market right on river bank across street from hotel.
We loved the hotel .
Google for reviews , look at the photos on the tripadvisor.com review site.
Not a fancy luxury hotel, but clean, modern decor and very good value
OK, thanks for the additional information, bethtoddmurphy.
First off, I wouldn't stay near Perrache. While it's close to (one tram stop from) the university your daughter will be attending, it's in a fairly seedy area, and there are long (probably scary to the average tourist) dark tunnels beneath the station to get from one side to the other. Now, if you're in the market for streetwalkers or recreational drugs, the Perrache area (especially on its south side) might be right up your alley. But I suspect that's not the case.
Most of the sights a tourist would find interesting are further north along the presqu'île. There's a Metro line (Line A) that runs north south along the presqu'île and it makes it very convenient to get around. The university lies along Tram line T1. It's also near the interesting resistance museum (Centre d'histoire de la résistance et de la déportation).
As for Roman ruins, there are two ampitheatres just below the ornate Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière. There's a third, smaller one downhill in the 1st arrondisement called the Amphithéâtre des Trois Gaules. It's a bit of a walk from the Hôtel de Ville - Louis Pradel Metro stop.
Back up the Fourvière hill is an interesting Gallo-Roman museum that goes over the Roman history of Lyon, or Lugdunum (its Roman name). It will be open on Easter, as it's typically only closed on Labor Day (May 1), Christmas Day, and New Years Day. A pleasant thing to do, early in the morning, is to take the funicular up to Fourvière (Metro/bus tickets accepted), tour the basilica (both levels -- look for the staircase), enjoy the view over the wall, see the Roman ruins, go through the museum (a surprising number of Roman artifacts were discovered in the Rhône and Saône rivers during bridge construction over the centuries), and then take one of the leafy trails in Des Hauters Park for a leisurely downhill walk back to Vieux Lyon.
Two suggestions for a good lunch are the Vieux Lyon outpost of Daniel et Denise, a local group of restaurants, or (better yet, in my opinion) get a table at Aux Trois Maries.
While in Vieux Lyon, don't miss the Cathédrale Saint-Jean -- while not as ornate as the much newer Basilica on Fourviere, it has a cool (no longer functioning) astronomical clock from the 1300s. By "clock" I mean something about the size of four armoirs standing next to one another. There also is a small park with 5th-century ruins behind it (Jardin Archéologique Saint Jean) -- it's about 600 years older than Cathédrale Saint-Jean.
I have only stayed in a hotel in Lyon a few times, because I had my apartment there for several years, but Hôtel des Célestins between Place Bellecour and Place des Jacobins, is pretty good. It's right next to the Célestins theatre. If you do choose to stay there and you're there on a Sunday, walk over to the Saône and spend some time at the huge Marché Saint-Antoine Célestins. While early in the year, there still may be quite a bit to see. Also on Sunday (but not Monday) is the Marché Croix Rousse -- to get to it you take the Metro line C up the Croix Rousse hill (the hill that works -- formerly thick with silk workers -- as compared to Fourvière, the hill that prays; owing to the Basilica). Line C is different than Lyon's other Metro lines because it is a cogwheel line, due to its steep gradient up the hill. Metro stop Croix-Paquet on Line C is reportedly the most steeply-sloped metro stop in Europe.
If you're interested in traboules and you (or your daughter) will have a smartphone, I recommend downloading the Traboules app prepared for the Lyon Tourism Office. It makes them much easier to find. Some people are fascinated by them, some yawn. It's up to your interests. I also would download the transit app for Lyon (published by TCL Sytral, which runs Lyon's transit system). It will save you a lot of time in figuring out how to get from point A to point B. It includes maps of lines and stops.
Have fun!
Thank you, K, for so much helpful information!
No problem. Happy to help.
A bonus bit of information, which your daughter probably already knows.
You likely will see two odd words used around Lyon: canut and gone. They're often used in the plural: canuts and gones.
Canut -- a silkworker from Lyon
Gone -- basically means a "kid from Lyon." Young (and sometimes old) Lyonnais sometimes will refer to their gang of friends as "les gones."
