Pentes de la Croix-Rousse (1er)

The Pentes — the steep slopes climbing from the Presqu'île up toward the Croix-Rousse plateau — were where the silk-weavers' looms once clattered, and the bohemian, slightly anarchic spirit of that worker district survives in the bars and small kitchens today. This is Lyon's natural-wine and craft-coffee heartland: L'Antiquaire pours classic and inventive cocktails in a dim room, Micro Sillon is a butcher-led address obsessive about its meat, and La Boîte à Café set the city's specialty-coffee standard. The streets are graffitied, vertical and densely sociable, the kind of place where a Soda Bar and a serious eatery share the same block. It rewards the curious wanderer far more than the guidebook.