La Croix-Rousse
Silk-weavers' hillside laced with hidden passages once used to dodge soldiers and Nazi patrols.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to La Croix-Rousse in Lyon starts with a weaver slipping through a hidden passage to escape troops climbing the hill in November 1831, when the silk-working canuts marched under a banner reading live working or die fighting after merchants tore up a promised fair wage. It follows how those same hidden corridors, called traboules, were used a century later by resistance fighters dodging German patrols. Listen for how many still lace the neighborhood today, and where to find one you can walk through yourself.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Pentes de la Croix Rousse
Steep silk-weavers' district of hidden passageways once used to smuggle fabric, revolutionaries and resistance fighters alike.
Traboule et Cour des Voraces
Six-story stone stairwell inside a hidden covered passage, once a silk-workers' stronghold and Resistance escape route.
Passage Thiaffait
Curved nineteenth-century traboule of stone stairs, now workshops for fashion and textile makers.
La Longue Traboule
Renaissance passage of five linked courtyards threading through four old buildings between two historic streets.
La Maison des Canuts
Working silk museum with live Jacquard loom demonstrations and the story of the weavers' nineteenth-century revolts.
Association Soierie Vivante
Working silk-trim workshop with carved walnut Jacquard looms, preserved exactly as weavers left it.