Lyon or Paris: which French city should you choose?
It's a question visitors rarely pose. Paris, the most visited city in the world, romanticised in every film, novel and song going, is surely unmissable. For many overseas visitors, Paris is France. Sometimes it's even seen as Europe.
Most people know Lyon, France's third city, as a 'place where you eat well' (true). You won't have watched Midnight in Lyon, Passport to Lyon or We'll Always Have Lyon, and the city's basilica won't be on every keyring, tote bag and t-shirt going, but Lyon doesn't have to shout about its beauty to win over visitors. Having lived in both cities, here's the lowdown.
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Architecture & sights
There's no denying that Paris ticks a lot of boxes when it comes to sightseeing. The skyline is dominated by the Eiffel Tower. The tallest building in central Paris*, very few even come close to its height, and in 2023 a law was passed banning the construction of any buildings over 12 storeys. It means that Paris's most iconic building is visible from just about anywhere.
There's the Baroque hilltop basilica, the Sacré-Coeur, whose grey-white stone often blends into the moody Parisian sky, there are palaces upon palaces and so many gold-gilded domes that the city from above looks like a foil-wrapped Easter Egg hunt.
Even the residential buildings, many of them seven-storey-or-higher Hausmanns, with zinc roofs and wrought iron Juliette balconies, have you romanticising about packing in the day job and squishing yourself into an overpriced chambre de bonne (maid's room) while you spend all your savings on equally overpriced pâtisseries.
Lyon's Tour Metallique de Fourvière is a pitiful imitation, scorned even by the locals and now a telecom tower, but aside from that, the architecture is wonderfully varied.
Fourvière Basilica, built in the 19th century, looks over the city's two rivers and the Alps on the horizon, and inside the starry golden ceiling looks like a scene from Arabian Nights.
Many of the buildings in UNESCO-listed Vieux Lyon, the old town, date from the Renaissance, but keep an eye out for modern details. On the façade of Cathédrale Saint-Jean (built between the 12th and 15th centuries) is France's first and only Muslim gargoyle, carved by Ahmed Benzizine in his own likeness.
In Gratte-ciel, a district built in the 1920s and 30s, Art Deco 'skyscrapers' (technically misnamed as they're too short, at only around 60 metres high) look like the entry to Oz.
Food & drink
Restaurants in Paris are either wonderful or terrible; there's no in-between. Often eye-wateringly expensive, this is a city where it pays to plan in advance. There's little chance of you getting into that hot new address on the day if you haven't booked.
Fashion-week-capital Paris is always up on the latest trends, be that speakeasy restaurants (try Orgueil in the 11th arrondissement, or district, where the seven-course tasting menu is served in the little backroom overlooking the kitchen), or the dreaded small plates that have become the bane of every Londoner's bank balance.
Cocktail bars have shaken and stirred up the entire drinks scene, and you can even get cocktails on tap at The Honey Moon.
In Lyon*, getting a bad meal is very difficult, unless you wind up in a tourist trap bouchon in Vieux Lyon. Walk-ins are easier, and the density of Michelin-starred restaurants for a city of its size is impressive (17).
You can't throw a dart at a map and eat cuisine from any of the 195 countries in the world, but fusion cuisine is on a roll, with everything from Franco-Lebanese at Ayla to Franco-Mexican at Alebrije.
The great outdoors
A city break doesn't mean giving up all that's green, but Lyon blows Paris out of the water. Paris has some gorgeous manicured gardens. The Jardin du Luxembourg is lovely in any season, the handsome buildings making up for the lack of leaves in winter.
Parc des Buttes-Chaumont has a constant buzz: pizzerias, accordion players and smooching couples on the steep slopes of a former gypsum quarry. The River Seine is (allegedly) now safe for a dip, although you're probably better off with one of the outdoor pools along the riverbank, such as Piscine Joséphine Baker.
If a park doesn't cut it, there's always Fontainebleau Forest an hour away, one of the best bouldering spots in the country, with plenty of trail running and all-terrain biking routes.
Meanwhile, Lyon has France's largest urban park, the Parc de la Tête d'Or, with several rose gardens, a zoo (gradually being phased out), and a lake.
Just outside the city is Miribel-Jonage, a monstrously large park filled with lakes and woodland, where you can even go sailing.
A 90-minute drive from the city centre you'll find low-level ski resorts in Chartreuse and Vercors regional parks, with some of the best skiing in the Alps half an hour further. In summer, the mountains become a playground for hikers and mountain bikers.
Entertainment
Head to the capital for nightlife: classic French shows such as cabaret will always be superior here. The venues are iconic, the scarlet windmill of the Moulin Rouge, the asymmetric building like a gaping mouth of the Philharmonie de Paris.
Most major artists pass through Paris on their European tours, and there's an abundance of comedy shows in English as well as French. The festivals are bigger and bolder: Rock en Seine attracts over 180,000 attendees.
While it's perfectly possible to do something different every night of the week in Lyon, comedy shows and theatre tend to be exclusively in French.
It's a hipster heaven for discovering new artists: Le Périscope is a pot-luck of up-and-coming artists often too edgy to categorise into a genre, and former abattoir Halle Tony Garnier hosts everything from wine fairs to live orchestra cinema screenings.
LGBTQIA+ venues are much thinner on the ground in Lyon; Paris has a plethora. Head to La Mutinerie.
Getting around
Both Paris and Lyon have comprehensive metro systems. Cycling in Paris requires more courage than in its south-eastern counterpart.
Compare weather
Use the graphs below to compare the weather in both destinations. Find out more about the climate in Lyon and the climate in Paris as well as conditions across the region in our complete guide to the climate in France.
Lyon vs Paris
Maximum daytime temperature (°C)
Hours of sunshine per day
Days with some rainfall
Monthly rainfall (mm)
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