Lyon

Lyon's traboules are the city's most distinctive architectural quirk: hidden passageways cutting straight through buildings and courtyards, connecting one street to another without going around the block. They date largely to the city's centuries as a major silk-weaving center — canuts, the silk workers, used them to move bolts of fabric from hillside workshops down to riverside warehouses without exposing the material to rain. Hundreds still exist, concentrated in Vieux Lyon and the Croix-Rousse hill, and locals use many of them as everyday shortcuts rather than tourist curiosities.

France's own food culture widely credits Lyon, not Paris, as the country's gastronomic capital, a reputation built on bouchons — small, traditional bistros serving hearty regional dishes like quenelles (pike dumplings in a rich sauce) and andouillette (a coarse-cut tripe sausage that's an acquired taste even for many French visitors). The city backs the reputation up with numbers: Lyon has one of the highest concentrations of Michelin-recognized restaurants per capita anywhere in France.

Vieux Lyon, the old town at the base of Fourvière hill, is one of the largest Renaissance districts in Europe, largely intact thanks to Lyon's wealth as a silk and banking center in the 15th and 16th centuries. Above it, the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière — a striking 19th-century church built in a mix of Romanesque and Byzantine styles — overlooks the city from the same hill where the Romans first founded Lugdunum, and the basilica grounds include the remains of a genuine Roman theater still used for performances today.

Each December, Lyon hosts the Fête des Lumières, a festival of light installations across the city that traces back to a spontaneous 1852 tradition of placing candles in windows to honor the Virgin Mary — it has since grown into one of the larger light festivals in Europe, drawing crowds well beyond what the rest of the year sees.

Sitting at the confluence of the Rhône and Saône rivers, Lyon works well as a food-focused counterpoint to a Paris trip, or as a base for exploring Beaujolais wine country, less than an hour north by train.