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Lyon: Sacred Places

Lyon: Sacred Places

Lyon · France

14 stops10 km2 h 3 min
  • Audio guide
  • 4 languages
  • Offline

Walk through Lyon’s sacred places, beginning with the Basilica of Notre Dame of Fourvière and continuing past churches, basilicas, and the Temple de Cybèle. The route brings together Christian buildings dedicated to Mary, saints, and other religious figures, alongside an archaeological site linked by its name to Cybèle. Notice how each stop offers a different name, tradition, or form of sacred space. The walk is worth taking for this concentrated view of Lyon’s religious landmarks.

The walk

Stops 1–6 of 14. The rest are in the app.

  1. Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière

    Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière

    A privately funded basilica built after Lyon credited the Virgin with saving the city

  2. Temple of Cybele

    Temple of Cybele

    A supposed temple that became a major archaeological argument about Roman Lyon.

  3. Church of Saint Irenaeus

    Church of Saint Irenaeus

    A nineteenth-century church built over a Roman necropolis and a crypt rooted in Lyon’s early Christian history.

  4. 8 more stops on this walk, in the app
  5. Saint-Just Church

    Saint-Just Church

    A church rebuilt inside Lyon’s walls, carrying the name and memory of a basilica left two hundred metres away.

  6. Saint George's Church

    Saint George's Church

    A nineteenth-century church standing on a site with fourteen centuries of religious history.

  7. Basilica of Saint-Martin of Ainay

    Basilica of Saint-Martin of Ainay

    A Romanesque abbey church with a disputed ancient past and a very eventful afterlife.

  8. Stop 7

  9. Stop 8

  10. Stop 9

  11. 8 more stops in the app

Data: OpenStreetMap contributors and Google Places

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How a walk works

8 more stops in the app

This page shows the first 6 of 14 stops. The rest of the walk, and the guide who narrates it, are in the app.

  1. Pick a walk

    Every stop is a real place, already in walking order.

  2. Pocket your phone

    Follow the line on the live map, or download the walk before you lose signal.

  3. Listen as you arrive

    On a narrated walk the story starts on its own at each stop, so your eyes stay on the place.

See the whole walk in the app

Free to install · Every city’s featured walk is free, start to finish.

  • A guide who talks

    Narration at every stop, starting on its own as you arrive — phone in your pocket.

  • The route, followed

    A live map with the turns called out, and a way back whenever you wander off it.

  • In four languages

    English, French, Spanish and Arabic — the words and the voice, not just the labels.

  • Or build your own

    Pick the places you actually want and the app works out the order to walk them in.

  • The unglamorous things

    Toilets, pharmacies, cash points and water, without leaving the walk.

  • No signal needed

    Download a walk before you go and it works under a souk roof or on a plane.

  • Picks up where you left off

    Stop for lunch, come back tomorrow, and the walk is exactly where you left it.