Drifting through Lyon
Wandering on foot, metro, tram and funicular to soak up the city – and buy a bottle opener.
The writer and filmmaker Iain Sinclair, who chronicles London’s hidden histories, advocates exploring on foot. Drifting purposefully is his preferred mode, ‘trampling asphalted earth in alert reverie’ to reveal forgotten or marginalised aspects of the urban landscape.
On a family holiday, we prefer a mix of walking and public transport – the tram or metro extends our range, but we still move at a slower rhythm than the city. There’s time for it to soak into our consciousness. That’s how we hoped to spend the day drifting through France’s third-largest city.
But opening the shutters on our hotel room window, we found Lyon dampened by persistent rain. The weather forecast predicted it would relent by lunchtime. That was too long to wait. We had sat on the TGV from Lille for four hours the previous day and our legs were keen to get moving, so we donned our waterproofs and set out.
A stroll over the bridge took us to the old town. We were keen to use one of Lyon’s funiculars, which trundle up and down much as they have for over a hundred years. We wanted F2, as it’s known – the line to Fourvière. That would take us to the vantage point of Notre-Dame de Fourvière. From there, we could see the city laid out before us.