Top attractions in your Lyon City Card

Lyon's most ambitious museum sits at the literal tip of the city, where the Saone and Rhone rivers merge. Its crystal-and-cloud architectural shell, an engineering marvel of steel and glass by the Coop Himmelb(l)au firm, is as much a reason to visit as the 3.5 million artifacts inside. Four permanent exhibitions explore the origins of Earth, the web of life, human societies, and visions of eternity, anchored by show-stopping objects like a 155-million-year-old mammoth skeleton, Egyptian mummies, and Amazonian artifacts. Priority access means no queuing at the entrance, a genuine advantage in high season.

Suggested time: 2.5–3 hours

Housed in a grand 17th-century Benedictine convent near Place des Terreaux, this is one of the largest and most important fine art collections in France. Its 70-room span covers ancient Egyptian antiquities, Greek and Roman sculpture, medieval manuscripts, and 35 rooms of European paintings arranged chronologically from the 14th century to the early 20th. The Impressionist wing and the rooftop sculpture garden are particular highlights often overlooked by first-time visitors.

Suggested time: 2–3 hours

Stand inside the actual family home where Auguste and Louis Lumiere invented the cinematograph and screened the world's first public film in December 1895. The museum in the Monplaisir district preserves the brothers' inventions: the Cinematograph, the Photorama panoramic viewer, the Autochrome colour photography process, and 75mm projection alongside a permanent screening room showing restored Lumiere films. For cinema lovers and history buffs alike, this is one of the most emotionally resonant spaces in Lyon.

Suggested time: 1–1.5 hours

Tucked inside a Renaissance-listed building on Rue Saint-Jean in the heart of Vieux Lyon, this museum is one of the city's most-visited for good reason. The cinema wing displays original props, sets, and costumes from major Hollywood productions, while the upper floors are dedicated to breathtaking miniature worlds—hyper-realistic room scenes, streets, and vignettes created by artist Dan Ohlmann, each no larger than a matchbox. Remarkable craftsmanship that astonishes visitors of all ages.

Suggested time: 1.5–2 hours

The Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourviere dominates Lyon's skyline from its hilltop perch, but the interior and tower are only the beginning. The Lyon City Card includes a unique guided rooftop tour that takes you above the nave, along the exterior parapets and gargoyle-lined ledges, with panoramic views stretching across the city, the Rhone-Alpes plain, and on clear days to Mont Blanc. It is an experience unavailable to regular visitors and one of the most memorable inclusions in the card.

Suggested time: 1–1.5 hours (guided tour)

Lyon's UNESCO World Heritage old town is the densest concentration of Renaissance architecture outside Italy, and it hides something no map shows you: traboules, the secretive covered passageways that silk merchants used to transport goods between workshops and the riverside. A guide leads you through the longest traboule (connecting Rue Saint-Jean to Rue du Boeuf), past the Romanesque Cathedral Saint-Jean-Baptiste, and through hidden courtyards with Gothic staircases. Essential context for everything else you see in Lyon.

Suggested time: 2 hours (guided tour)

Few museums carry a location as heavy as this one. The CHRD occupies the former Gestapo headquarters on Avenue Berthelot, where Klaus Barbie, the 'Butcher of Lyon', interrogated and tortured Resistance members, including Jean Moulin. Equipped with an audio guide, visitors move through immersive sound-and-vision exhibitions covering the Occupation, the Resistance, the genocide of Jewish people, and the liberation of Lyon. A sombre, necessary, and deeply affecting place of memory.

Suggested time: 1.5–2 hours

Lyon's Tony Garnier Urban Museum is unlike any other in the world: it spans 25 apartment buildings in the Etats-Unis housing estate, the facades of which are covered with 25 large-scale murals celebrating the work of the visionary Lyonnais architect Tony Garnier. Garnier's 1901 'Industrial City' project was a radical blueprint for modern urban planning. Walking between the buildings with the card's included access is a tour through both art and architectural history, set against a living, working neighbourhood.

Suggested time: 1–1.5 hours

Lyon was the silk capital of the world for centuries, and the Maison des Canuts in the bohemian Croix-Rousse district keeps that tradition alive. Guided tours (included with the city card) take you through the history of Lyon's legendary silk industry from 1536 to today, including a live demonstration of a 19th-century Jacquard loom, the mechanical predecessor to the modern computer punch card. Weavers demonstrate technique and explain how a single scarf can take dozens of hours to produce. A grounding, tactile counterpoint to the city's grand museums.

Suggested time: 1–1.5 hours (guided tour)

Set across 800 square metres in the Confluence district, Mini World Lyon is an obsessively detailed scale model of the world's great cities, landscapes, and transport systems—complete with moving trains, operating airports, twinkling night skies, and miniature street scenes that repay close attention. This is a genuinely family-friendly attraction: adults who grew up with model railways will find it technically astonishing, while children discover something new in every corner. Evening visits, when the lighting shifts to simulate night, are particularly atmospheric.

Suggested time: 1–2 hours

For football fans, a visit to Groupama Stadium on the eastern outskirts of Lyon is a pilgrimage. The OL Museum chronicles the history of one of France's most decorated clubs—seven consecutive Ligue 1 titles, multiple UEFA Women's Champions League victories, and a pantheon of celebrated players. Interactive displays, trophy rooms, player memorabilia, and access to the stadium's public areas make this a satisfying half-day trip for supporters.

Suggested time: 1.5–2 hours