Lyon, France

The 19th-century basilica on the hill above Vieux Lyon — a mosaic-and-marble interior the locals call the "upside-down elephant" for its four corner towers. Take the funicular up, walk down. The terrace gives the orientation view of the city.

Three streets of 15th- and 16th-century town houses, tan and ochre and rose, threaded by the traboules (covered passages). Walk from Saint-Jean cathedral up Rue Saint-Jean and into a handful of open traboules — a one-hour, high-density loop.

Lyon's defining oddity — covered passages that cut through buildings to link parallel streets. Originally built so the silk weavers could move bolts of silk between workshops without the rain hitting them. Roughly 40 are open to the public; the Tour Director leads a route through five or six.

Two intact Roman theatres on the hill below the basilica — the larger one held 10,000 — built when Lyon was capital of the Three Gauls. Free to walk. The Lugdunum museum next door is one of the best Roman archaeology museums in France.

The "almost-island" between the two rivers, anchored by Place Bellecour (the largest pedestrian square in Europe) and walked end-to-end up Rue de la République to the Opéra. The shopping- and-cafés half of the city; balances out a Vieux Lyon morning.

The 2014 deconstructivist crystal-and-cloud at the southern tip of the Presqu'île, where the rivers meet. Natural history, anthropology, and global cultures under one roof — a clean half-day for a high school group trip and a balance to the old-city visits.

Pickpocketing is the realistic risk and concentrates on metro lines A and D, in Place Bellecour, and at Part-Dieu station. Cross-body bags in front, phones off café tables, and a Day 1 briefing cover almost all of it. Hotels are vetted for 24-hour reception and in-room safes.

Tap water is excellent. No special vaccines required beyond CDC routine. The Hospices Civils de Lyon (the largest hospital system in France after Paris) runs multiple 24-hour ERs to international standards and accepts US travel insurance.

Coach drops at the Quai Saint-Antoine or the Place Bellecour stops; the metro, tram, and funicular get the group between neighborhoods on the Tour Director's lead. No students on Vélo'v rental bikes or e-scooters at any point.

Lyon sits in a low-seismic zone. Practical concerns are summer heat (the inversion in the Rhône valley makes it feel hotter than the thermometer reads) and occasional winter river fog — neither disrupts a well-planned student group itinerary.

Auguste and Louis Lumière shot the first projected motion picture, La Sortie de l'Usine Lumière, on Rue du Premier- Film in March 1895. The Lumière museum on the original site is open for visits.

In the 19th century 30,000 canuts worked silk looms in the Croix-Rousse hill north of the Presqu'île. The traboules were built to move silk; the Croix-Rousse riots of 1831 were one of the first organized worker uprisings in modern Europe.

The Lyon-born chef who invented "nouvelle cuisine" in the 1960s and ran a three-Michelin-star kitchen in nearby Collonges for 50 straight years until his death in 2018. The Halles de Lyon market is named for him.

In 1852 Lyon lit candles in every window after the Virgin Mary was credited with saving the city from cholera. The candles in the windows on December 8 are still the local tradition; the modern light installations are an add-on.

The covered passages were used by the French Resistance during the German occupation to move people and information across Vieux Lyon and the Croix-Rousse without showing themselves on the street. Most of the Resistance leadership in the city operated from Lyon.