A gourmet slant is inevitable in a weekend itinerary in Lyon, with the healthy sprinkling of Michelin-starred restaurants and streets packed with the traditional Lyonnaise bouchons, their red-and-white checked tabletops groaning with dishes of offal, Quennelles de brochet and unctuous St Marcellin cheeses. Old Lyon, a Unesco world heritage site, lies between the hills of Fourvière and Croix-Rousse, its narrow streets punctuated with characteristic passageways that were used by the silk merchants to transport their products when the city echoes with the clacking of hundreds of thousand of looms. Today, though, a new chapter is in the making, with Lyon gleaming from renovations and urban remodelling.

Where to stay

Cour des Loges

9/10 Telegraph expert rating

The grandeur and majesty of Renaissance Lyon lives on at the luxurious Cour des Loges, a five-star hotel with sumptuous rooms, a spa and a Michelin-starred gastronomic restaurant wrapped up inside a 14th-century traboule (Lyonnais courtyard or passageway). Find it in the historic Unesco-prized maze of Vieux Lyon.