Lyon · Self-guided audio walk

The Croix-Rousse Plateau: The Market and the Canuts

A short, flat walk across the working village on top of the hill.

6Stops
2.1 kmDistance
35+ minTime

Photo by corno.fulgur75 on Openverse

This is the flat, working half of the Croix-Rousse hill, where Lyon's silk weavers built their tall-windowed workshops and did their daily shopping. The walk stays on top the whole time, with no slopes to climb.

It starts at the Gros Caillou boulder, follows the morning food market along the boulevard, crosses the square with the Jacquard statue, and walks Rue d'Austerlitz, a street built in 1812 for canut lofts. Then you watch the Jacquard looms run at the Maison des Canuts and finish in front of the Mur des Canuts, the 1,200 square metre mural that covers a whole gable with the district's portrait.

Hear it on the street

Get the turn-by-turn audio guide in the app. The narration plays itself as you reach each stop, hands-free and offline.

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Stop by stop

The route

Interactive map of the route. The full stop list below works without it.

Must see

Photo by Guilhem Vellut from Annecy, France on Wikimedia Commons

Gros Caillou

0:00

A 24-tonne Alpine boulder and the eastern lookout of the Croix-Rousse plateau.

This boulder got here long before any of the streets around it. The Gros Caillou is a 24-tonne block of quartzite, torn from the Alps near the Maurienne and Tarentaise valleys and carried about 200 kilometres by a glacier around 140,000 years ago. Workers hit it in 1890 while digging the tunnel for the Croix-Paquet funicular, the little ficelle that pulled people up the hill. The stone was so hard they could not break it, so they dug it out whole and set it on a pedestal here in 1891.

The esplanade around you stands where that funicular line used to end, and the view still runs east across the Rhône plain to the Bugey. On a clear day you can make out Mont Blanc. This was the top of the line, where the plateau began.

Open in Google Maps

≈9 min walk to the next stop

Must see

Photo by François GOGLINS on Wikimedia Commons

Marché de la Croix-Rousse

0:00

A kilometre-long food market along the boulevard, open every morning except Monday.

The stalls around you are the pantry of the plateau. The food market runs for about a kilometre along boulevard de la Croix-Rousse and sets up every day except Monday. On Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday it trades from 6 am to 1:30 pm, with about 95 stallholders. On Wednesday and Thursday the market is smaller, around 23 traders, and it packs up at 1 pm.

It opens on public holidays too. This is where the canuts shopped, and the pitch still feels like a village high street set down in the middle of a city. On a busy morning the air is full of cheese sellers calling out and fishmongers announcing the last crates. On a Monday the boulevard is quiet, and you can read the routine in the folded awnings and painted shutters.

Open in Google Maps

≈5 min walk to the next stop

Local pick

Photo by Benoît Prieur on Wikimedia Commons

Place de la Croix-Rousse

0:00

The plateau's central square, watched over by a stone statue of Joseph Marie Jacquard.

This square is the centre of the plateau. In the middle stands a statue of Joseph Marie Jacquard, the Lyonnais inventor whose punched-card attachment let one weaver run a patterned loom alone. The first statue was bronze, inaugurated in 1901, but the Vichy regime melted it down during the Second World War for the metal. The stone replacement in front of you, carved by Élie Ottavry, went up in 1947.

Around the square, the plateau still works like a small town: the arrondissement town hall sits close by, little shops line the edges, and the metro line C climbs the hill on a rack track. On market mornings the square absorbs the overspill of stalls and shoppers from the boulevard. This is the plateau's front room.

Open in Google Maps

≈3 min walk to the next stop

Free preview ends here · stops 4 to 6 continue in the app

Rue d'Austerlitz

A street built in 1812 as canut workshops, with tall windows made to light the looms.

in app

Maison des Canuts

Lyon's silk museum, where hand-operated Jacquard looms still run for visitors.

in app

Mur des Canuts

A 1,200 square metre trompe-l'oeil, the largest painted mural in Europe.

in app

Good to know

Before you go

How do I reach the plateau without climbing?

Metro line C climbs the Croix-Rousse as a rack railway and uses the standard TCL ticket. The plateau itself is flat once you are up.

SourceTCL 1-trip ticket

When is the Croix-Rousse market open?

The food market along the boulevard runs every morning except Monday.

Is the Maison des Canuts open on Sundays?

No. The Maison des Canuts is open Tuesday to Friday 10:00 to 13:00 and 14:00 to 18:00, and Saturday 10:00 to 18:00; it closes Sundays and public holidays. Permanent-collection entry is €3.

SourceVille de Lyon

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Provenance · last verified August 22, 2026

Built from the Wayside route itself: the stops, their order, and the walk between them.

Photo by corno.fulgur75 on Openverse · CC BY 2.0

Photo by Guilhem Vellut from Annecy, France on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0

Photo by François GOGLINS on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo by Benoît Prieur on Wikimedia Commons · CC0

Photo by Jacmin on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0

Photo by Blueberry-026 on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo by genevieveromier on Openverse · CC BY 2.0

Photo by SashiRolls on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo by Thomas K on Unsplash

Photo by ell brown on Openverse · CC BY-SA 2.0