Recommended activities for Macon

Are you considering multiple night stays in Lyon and Mâcon? They are only an hour apart. We once stayed in Mâcon for 4 nights and that was 4 nights too many. Our reason for staying there was to visit the Taizé Monastic retreat center. Otherwise we thought the dining options and lodging were not very interesting. We also did a day trip to Cluny to see the Abbey remains.

What are you hoping to do in the area? The link as written doesn’t work so I’m not sure of what someone would be recommending in Mâcon. If I sound a little harsh about Mâcon it’s because it wasn’t a very inviting, charming city to come back to after a day of sightseeing.

Please let us know your interests for this area and maybe we can help you pick a different town or maybe this serves a purpose for you too. In 4 months of traveling that semester, it was my least favorite city.

Macon is the center for Maconaise wines, so we're drawn to the area to try their wines directly. However, we'd like to get to know the area in other ways than just sampling their wines. Here's the list from the site I mentioned:

1. Musée des Ursulines (history/archaeology)
2. L’Apothicairerie de l’Hôtel-Dieu de Mâcon (see 1775 room)
3. Maison de Bois (oldest house/wood house/curious carvings)
4. Riverside
5. Vieux Saint-Vincent (twin steeple church, part torn down)
6. Église Saint-Pierre de Mâcon (new twin steeple cathedral)
7. The Rock of Solutré (limestone escarpment, museum, wooly mammoth bones)
8. Cluny Abbey (great monastery)
9. Chapelle des Moines (famous hidden 12th century fescoes)
10. Château Berzé le Châtel (castle! submline gardens)
11. Château de Pierreclos (castle with winetasting) 12, Brou Monastery (alabaster and marble tombs)
12. Musée Départemental de la Bresse (rustic, beautiful, folksy)
13. Walks and Bike Rides
14. Food and Drink (wines, cheese, freshwater fish, snails)

Link to full list: https://www.thecrazytourist.com/15-best-things-macon-france/

The Rock of Solutré is unique, a must-climb. The Cluny Abbey gives you an idea of the importance and power of the Order. Those are the only two I've visited.

The "hidden" paintings would probably be interesting. A lot of Romanesque wall paintings in churches were plastered over and painted white over the centuries. They are now being re-exposed and can be very interesting from our 21st C point of view. St. Vincent is the patron saint of vintners. That could be interesting to see what sort of artifacts are in the church.

I second la Roche de Solutré. The views of the Pouilly-Fuissé vineyards at its base are spectacular. The small, paleolithic museum at the base of the rock is worth a visit. People have been living in the area of Solutré for over 50,000 years, and the artifacts they've left behind are interesting in their similarity to those far more recent ones found in the Americas.

Keeping with the prehistorical theme, les Grottes d'Azé might be worth a visit. They're known not only for their ancient human artifacts but fossilized skeletons of cave bears and lions. The Château of Cormantin is not far away, either, as is Cluny. Both are worth a visit.

Mâcon itself has a lot to offer residents and other locals, not as much to offer tourists.

It’s funny that while we didn’t care for the town of Mâcon we too seek out wine from that region and are excited to find it in stores near us. There are certainly interesting places to explore in the area and the wine is great. If you choose a nice hotel to come back after your day trips it will certainly be a more memorable time than we had in the hotel on the edge of town we stayed in, I don’t remember the name, but most assuredly it wasn’t the Panorama mentioned in your other thread which sounds lovely.

Are you 100% set on Mâcon? Tournus, 30 km to the north, is better set up for tourism in my opinion, with some really nice restaurants (those seem to be sorely lacking in Mâcon!). Access to the wine country is the same.
If you are set on Mâcon, I've enjoyed staying at the Best Western d'Europe et d'Angleterre. Quite a charming place, we've used it as a stopover to break the drive and beat the traffic between Paris and the Alps last winter.

I too want to visit Macon since it is the sister city of my hometown, Macon, Georgia. I cant help you with Macon, France, but if you ever want to visit Macon, Georgia, I have plenty of recommended activities!

Every time I see this topic pop up, my brain misreads it as "Recommended Activities for Macron" -- and for a split second, I think to myself, why is someone coming to the RS Forum to try and plan things for President Macron to do ?