les Traboules de la Croix-Rousse

We finally took a walk through some of the traboules in our area by Croix-Paquet and the Croix-Rousse, which is the northern limit of Lyon. Traboules are pedestrian passages that go through buildings and across streets through different parts of the city. They're highlighted in the tourist guides because they look like regular doors to buildings, but if you know which doors to open, they turn into long walkways through courtyards, apartment buildings, and commercial buildings to different parts of the city. Today they're often marked with a little symbol, I think a lion face, but not all are still open to the public. In our area they were originally built for silkworkers so that they could get down to the Presqu'ile, central Lyon, in a straight line without winding down the roads. They were also used in the resistance against the German occupation in World War II. There's a picture above of a giant concrete staircase that's one of the more famous traboules in our area.

There are other markings for tourists all over our neighborhood and north of us, but we haven't yet figured out what they mean. One is an arm making a fist, another is some sort of flower, another is a lion head, and more rare is two eyes.

The last picture in the list is our apartment building. It was one of the original buildings for the silkworkers, which was the main industry for northern Lyon in the 19th century.