What it is
The Croix-Rousse is the hill north of the Presqu'île, between the Rhône and the Saône, topping out at 254 metres. Lyon calls it la colline qui travaille, the hill that works, opposite Fourvière, the hill that prays.
It was the quarter of the canuts, the silk weavers. ⭐ Their buildings are easy to recognise: tall, with very high ceilings and big windows, because they were built to hold Jacquard looms and to let in light to work by.
The canuts
The silk trade made Lyon the first working-class city of France in the eighteenth century. The canuts are remembered above all for their revolts in the nineteenth century, which influenced social thinkers from the Saint-Simonians to Marx.
The Maison des Canuts keeps working looms and shows how the trade worked.
Getting it right
⭐ Walk the slopes — the pentes — rather than riding to the top: that is where the traboules and the stairways are. Metro line C climbs the hill if you want to go up first and walk down.
