Vieux Lyon

This guide to Vieux Lyon walks through the neighborhood's Renaissance-era rise as a banking capital, centered on the merchant family Gadagne. It follows Thomas de Gadagne, a Florentine-style financier who built his fortune lending to kings and financing trade fairs that drew merchants from Florence, Lucca and Augsburg to these streets. You'll hear how a royal grant of tax-free fairs turned this quarter into a magnet for foreign money, and where the Gadagne name still marks a house nearby. Listen as you walk the narrow lanes stacked along the Saone, once the address of Europe's richest bankers.