Parc de la Tête d'Or

This guide to Parc de la Tete d'Or in Lyon opens with the centuries-old legend behind its name: a buried treasure said to include a solid gold head of Christ, hidden somewhere in the marsh that once covered this ground. It follows an 1855 search by a clairvoyant hired by the city, and then the real work of Prefect Claude-Marius Vaisse and landscapers Eugene and Denis Buhler, who dammed the Rhone and drained the swamp to create the park's sixteen-hectare lake. Stand at the water's edge and picture the marsh that lay here before any of it was tamed.