Fresque des Lyonnais
Six-story trompe-l'oeil facade of thirty painted balconies honoring two thousand years of local notables.
This guide to the Fresque des Lyonnais in Lyon starts with an obscure economist painted into a sixth-floor window most tourists walk straight past, then unpacks how this eight-hundred-square-meter mural of Lyon notables, finished in 1995, was really funded: mostly by private companies rather than the city that gets the credit. It follows how two hundred fifty candidates were narrowed to the thirty balconies you see today, and how the wall keeps changing, with one figure repainted blank in 2024 after allegations surfaced against him. Look closely at the top floor windows for the joke the whole mural is quietly playing.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.