Prison de Montluc

Every week, my wife and I run by what appears to be an unfinished mural along Rue du Dauphiné in the 3e. On the far left of this wall there is a painting of World War II resistance hero Jean Moulin, at the other end, some 200 metres down the road, there are two carefree children in modern clothes, happily racing one another. In between,  names are crudely scrawled - almost scratched - on a somewhat bland blue-and-brown background. 

We had always assumed that these were the names of people whom the artist would one day paint at that location on the wall. But another part of the fresco suggests otherwise: a series of painted tally marks which topple over and eventually turn into birds and fly away. 

One day, curiosity got the better of me, and I followed the wall around to the other side. And there I discovered what the mural meant. Because this was the scene of possibly the darkest chapter in the history of Lyon: the Prison de Montluc. 

Soixante-neuf

Ask a schoolboy what the number 69 means, and you're likely to be met with a splutter and a muffled guffaw. Because, as any teenager knows, "69" and its French equivalent, soixante-neuf, stand for mutual oral sex.

Serge Gainsburg and his breathy-voiced English girlfriend, Jane Birkin, famously sang the song "69, Année Erotique". However contrary to common belief, the number sixty-nine came to represent this sexual position not because of the way the participants' bodies line up (the circular part of each constituent digit signifying the heads and the trailing ends their legs), but because of Lyon – or rather the early Lyonnais themselves.

As fake as houses

Back in October, I was fascinated to read about three imaginary homes in a post on our sister blog, Invisible Paris.

Never having considered the possibility of buildings being anything other than what they appeared to be, I found the idea of pretend houses both amusing and intriguing. 

Could there, I wondered, also be artificial abodes in Lyon?

To my immense surprise, I discovered that there were at least five of them in my adopted home town on the peninsula between the Rivers Rhône and Saône. Two of these are in the 4th arrondissement, the other three in the 1st.

Seeing Italy

Uh-oh!

Lyon is some 160 kilometres from Chamonix, the ski resort on the Italian-French border. Mont Blanc, the mountain that separates the two countries at this point, is the highest not only in France, but in all the Alps, topping out at 4810 metres above mean sea level.

Although the Swiss border is much closer than the Italian one (Geneva is just 110km away), you can sometimes see Mont Blanc from Lyon's Fourvière hill, Croix-Rousse and other higher elevations, like the Mont d'Or just to the north-west.

On particularly clear days, you are treated to a whole mountain range stretching along the Italian border, and Mont Blanc itself appears to be just a few miles beyond the city limits. However, pretty as the sight is, it's not a good omen. 

Lyonnais mystery no. 2

The grand Louis XIII-style building situated at 8 Rue Godefroy in the upmarket 6th arrondissement is completely unique in Lyon and considered one of the city's most important hôtels particulier (mansions). Yet it isn't a stop on any of the innumerable guided tours. Nor is it featured in any of the guidebooks that I've come across. It is therefore theoretically ideal for inclusion on the Invisible Lyon blog.

However, when one of my readers asked me to look into its past, I soon found that this was a lot easier said than done.

Birdy Kids

Lyon is a cultural and artistic hub second only to Paris in France. Fabulous architecture aside, it has well over 200 large-scale frescoes and trompe-l’œil, more than 60 of which were painted by the prolific Cité Création alone. On alternate years Lyon holds the Biennale d'Art Contemporain, currently in its 12th edition, and it runs the hugely popular annual Lumière international film festival, which this year featured Quentin Tarantino.

Take a walk around the city, and it's clear to see that Lyon also has a vibrant and active street art scene. I already wrote about one goldmine of street art in the disused factories along Rue Feuillat. I've also photographed a lot of noteworthy street art for the Invisible Lyon Instagram account.

However, the most omnipresent and instantly recognisable street art in Lyon stems from a three-man collective that calls itself Birdy Kids. Last week I interviewed the group's unofficial spokesman: Guillaume.

Gare des Brotteaux

A perfectly restored Haussmannian building with an ornate sandstone facade, huge bay windows, a curved roof and a large, central clock stands on Boulevard Jules Favre in Lyon's swanky 6th arrondissement. This is the former Gare des Brotteaux. 
 
The building's resemblance to the Gare d'Orsay in Paris is no coincidence, because the two were built in the same era. But this wasn't the first railway station on the site.