We walked to the Old City, or Vieux Lyon, after our first night aboard the ship.  As our ship was docked on the Rhône, we had to cross a pedestrian bridge to reach the Saone quayside.  There are more medieval and Renaissance mansions in Vieux Lyon than anywhere in Europe except Venice, and most in Lyon are in a better state of preservation.

The bank of the Saône River, site of the oldest part of Lyon 

          We walked on freshly cobblestoned streets past shops, bakeries and restaurants serving regional dishes as we followed our guide to the Cathédrale of Lyon.  The cathedral was dedicated to Saint John the Baptist and completed in 1480.  By then, it had been under construction for 300 years.  Its Romanesque and Gothic elements blended in a way that I could not have expected to look as harmonious as it did.

La Cathédrale Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Lyon 

          During the Renaissance, the silk trade enriched Lyon’s merchants.  Some built ostentatious houses, flaunting their wealth with aristocratic embellishments such as towers.  The Rose Tower, La Tour Rose, was one of the grandest of these.

The Rose Tower, in Vieux Lyon
         

         Not content with merely trading in silk, Lyon’s merchants financed a venture in local sericulture.  It was slow to succeed.  Once it did, however, the silk industry became vital to Lyon’s economy until the 20th Century.  To keep the bolts of silk dry as they were carried between workshops, structures were erected that had roofed passages between them.   These are called traboules, and they still form an extensive network.

Courtyard door into the Long Traboule

In the Long Traboule

         The original silk factory buildings were converted into apartments, so our tour group had to keep quiet while we traversed the longest of the traboules.  Only the flats on the top floors got much light, and all of them were quite small.  Even so, they were desirable dwellings.  And that is so despite the residents‘ having to tolerate having tourists traipse through their ground floor premises on a regular basis.