Lyon, FranceThe birthplace of cinema — the family home of Auguste and Louis Lumière, where the first film ever projected to a paying audience was shot in 1895. The museum traces the full history of the Lumière brothers' inventions; the original factory and garden where the first films were made are still intact.
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The largest Renaissance old town in France — a UNESCO World Heritage district of ochre and terracotta townhouses, Gothic cathedral, and the traboules: a network of secret passageways through the blocks that silk workers used to carry bolts of fabric. Walking these hidden corridors is the essential Lyon experience.
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France's most important fine arts museum outside Paris — 70 rooms in a former royal abbey covering antiquity to the 20th century, with an extraordinary collection of Impressionists, Old Masters, and ancient artefacts. One of the most undervisited great art museums in Europe.
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Lyon's magnificent hilltop basilica — a lavish late-19th-century confection of white stone, Byzantine mosaics, and sweeping views over the confluence of the Rhône and Saône. Reach it by funicular from Vieux Lyon. The view from the esplanade at sunset is one of the great urban panoramas in France.