Recommendations for favorite sights and activities in Lyon, France

I was thinking of visiting Lyon, but have not made it yet. What I heard is that it's a convention city, esp. for pharmaceuticals. During convention season, hotel rates are very high. Do book your hotels asap.

Lumiere Brothers Museum - pioneers in photography and moving pictures

Ancient Roman Theatre

There are also remains of the Roman amphitheater, which aren’t featured as a major sight, and apparently get ignored by just about everyone, including the city government

Cathedral, up high. White outside and lots of gold inside. With four leg-like towers, locals say that from down in the city below, it looks like an upside-down white elephant

Croix Rousse neighborhood way up high, where silk weavers (canuts) worked their looms back when Lyon was a major silk producer. A visit to the Maison des Canuts silk worker museum will fill in the details.

Musee des Tissus, a textile museum with an incredible amount of fabrics. Intricate patterns and materials, many historic. I’ve spent hours there, amazed.

Trabules - secret passageways in the old town.

Market tour/cooking class at Plum Lyon, with Lucy Vanel.

Here's a related thread, including what I liked best. My top picks were the Gallo-Roman Museum, the view from the terrace beside the Notre Dame Basilica, the cathedral at the bottom of the hill, and the medieval section just north of there. Those sights took up most of a day for me. Your interests may differ.

Thank you to all three of you for the recommendations and also to the link to a similar topic (Thank you Dick!) I will do a better "search" next time. I have been doing sooooo much reading and research of places to see, eat, and stay in all the locations we will be traveling to and I think I have travel fatigue just from all that! LOL!

I can do oysters and wine for breakfast!

Our trip was brief -- a couple night side trip from Paris. The Roman ruins just down the street from the Basilica are interesting; we walked down to the center from there. for me the most important thing was the Traboules. We got a tourist map and explored on our own, but many of the most famously scenic ones are now closed to the public. The people living on the courtyards used COVID to close down access. I would hire a guide for that in hopes that the guide would have access to some that are now not easily accessed. It was interesting and photogenic even without that though.

We stayed on the peninsula and walked across the pedestrian bridge to Old Town and visited traboules there and then back across the river to La Croix Rousse where a particularly odd one with criss crossed stairs is open to view.

For a traditional bouchon meal we liked Les Lyonnaise which is just across the Soane on the footbridge. Reservations a must.

We got lunch at Les Halles Bocuse before taking the train back to Paris.

We were fascinated by the many extant segments of the 1st-century Roman aqueducts and the Gallo-Roman Museum referenced above. We also enjoyed the Croix-Rousse district, the more bohemian area that overlooks the city center.

I personally really enjoy the Confluence area. It's an entirely different experience from the rest of Lyon, as it's extremely modern and features energy efficient, sustainable architecture that presents a vision for the future. There's also a lovely walking-biking-running trail through and around the Confluence. But most people are more interested in the historical and gastronomic attractions of Lyon, which are legion.