Lyon · Self-guided audio walk

The Pentes de la Croix-Rousse: The Canut Climb

From a painted wall on the Saône to a six-storey weavers' staircase, the climb through Lyon's silk slopes.

7Stops
1.7 kmDistance
30+ minTime

Photo by Jacmin on Wikimedia Commons

This walk follows the canuts, the silk weavers of Lyon, up the Pentes de la Croix-Rousse. It begins at the Fresque des Lyonnais, a wall of 31 painted figures on the bank of the Saône, then crosses the village-scale Place Sathonay and the old merchants' quarter before reaching the Roman amphitheatre of the Three Gauls.

From there the route passes through the Passage Thiaffait's makers' workshops and climbs the montée de la Grande Côte, the weavers' daily staircase, to finish under the six-storey open stair of the Cour des Voraces. The whole walk stays below the plateau of the Croix-Rousse, on the stepped lanes the canuts used every working day.

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 sylaf on Openverse

Fresque des Lyonnais

0:00

A vast trompe-l'oeil wall painted in 1994 and 1995, where 31 figures from Lyon's history lean from their balconies.

You're standing where rue de la Martinière meets quai Saint-Vincent, right on the bank of the Saône. Until 1994 this corner was a blank 800 square metre gable. In 1994 and 1995 the artists of CitéCréation covered it with 31 figures from Lyon's history, and the people who lived in the building had offered them the wall. Start at street level, where the faces are closest to our own time: the chef Paul Bocuse, the writer Frédéric Dard, the broadcaster Bernard Pivot, the filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier. Look higher and each floor climbs further into the past, past the Lumière brothers and the aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry with the Little Prince, all the way up to the emperor Claudius, born in Lyon when it was still Lugdunum. The figures lean from painted balconies as if they live here, and more than a million people a year stop to be photographed among them.

Open in Google Maps

≈4 min walk to the next stop

Local pick

Photo by Jeanne Menjoulet on Openverse

Place Sathonay

0:00

A village-scale square opened in 1817, with the town hall of the 1st arrondissement and two lion fountains.

This square has the scale of a village green, and it opened in 1817 on land that had belonged to the Déserte convent. Its name remembers Nicolas Fay de Sathonay, the mayor of Lyon from 1805 to 1812; until then the spot was called place de la Déserte. The town hall of the 1st arrondissement takes up one side of the square. In the middle, two fountains with cast-iron lions watch over the paving, and a statue honours Sergent Blandan. Around you the streets start to rise, and the plain apartment blocks were built for the silk weavers who filled these slopes in the 1800s. This is the hinge between the flat city by the Saône and the climb ahead.

Open in Google Maps

≈3 min walk to the next stop

Local pick

Photo by Pierre Guinoiseau on Wikimedia Commons

Rue des Capucins

0:00

A narrow street named for a 17th-century Capuchin convent, at the edge of the merchants' quarter of the silk trade.

Rue des Capucins takes its name from the Capuchin friars who founded a convent here in 1622, roughly where number 6 stands today. They were expelled in the Revolution, and the street kept their name, first as grande rue neuve des Capucins and, by the middle of the 1800s, simply rue des Capucins. In the silk trade this lower part of the slope was the merchants' quarter. Weavers carried their cloth down from the hill to have it checked and priced around the building called the Condition des soies, and in 1831 the canuts came down this way in their first great uprising. Look for number 19, where a courtyard opens onto two facing staircases, a small rehearsal for the great stair you will see higher up.

Open in Google Maps

≈4 min walk to the next stop

Free preview ends here · stops 4 to 7 continue in the app

Amphitheatre of the Three Gauls

The vestiges of the oldest amphitheatre in Gaul, built in 19 AD for the federal sanctuary of the Three Gauls.

in app

Passage Thiaffait

A 19th-century traboule revived as a courtyard of designers' and makers' workshops, the Village des Créateurs.

in app

Montée de la Grande Côte

The historic climb that was the silk workers' staircase from the city up to the top of the slope.

in app

Cour des Voraces

A courtyard whose six-storey open stone staircase was the stronghold of the Voraces, the silk workers' mutual society.

in app

Good to know

Before you go

How steep is this walk?

It climbs the stepped lanes the canuts used every working day. The montée de la Grande Côte is the steepest section; take it slowly. If you want to skip the climb, metro line C, a rack railway, reaches the plateau on the same TCL ticket.

SourceTCL 1-trip ticket

Can I visit Passage Thiaffait?

Passage Thiaffait is a 19th-century traboule now used as the Village des Créateurs, a courtyard of designers' and makers' workshops. It is generally open in the daytime.

What is the Cour des Voraces?

It is a courtyard with a six-storey open stone staircase, once the stronghold of the Voraces, the silk workers' mutual society.

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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 Jacmin on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0

Photo by sylaf on Openverse · CC BY 2.0

Photo by Jeanne Menjoulet on Openverse · CC BY 2.0

Photo by Pierre Guinoiseau on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0

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 corno.fulgur75 on Openverse · CC BY 2.0

Photo by Thomas K on Unsplash

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