Where to stay in Lyon: the best neighbourhoods and hotels

Vieux Lyon is one of the largest Renaissance quarters in Europe, a strip of ochre and rose townhouses squeezed between the Saône and the hill. Its trick is the traboules: covered passageways that cut through the buildings from street to street, past spiral staircases and hidden courtyards. Above it all, a funicular climbs to Fourvière, where the basilica and two Roman theatres look out across the rooftops to the Alps on a clear day.

This is the romantic choice. Down in the old town, a five-star spreads through four Renaissance houses, with a Michelin-starred restaurant and a spa with an indoor pool. Up on the hill, a former convent turned luxury hotel has surveyed the city for centuries, and another sits on the remains of a Roman villa beside the ancient theatres. The lanes are busy by day and wonderfully still at night.

Place Bellecour is enormous, a rust-red square with Louis XIV on horseback in the middle and Fourvière floating above the rooftops behind. From here the main shopping streets run north, the antique dealers of the Ainay quarter lie south, and the Rhône quays, now one long riverside park, are two minutes east. The Grand Hôtel-Dieu, a domed former hospital on the river, has been reborn as a showpiece of shops, restaurants and courtyards.

Lyon's best hotels cluster here. One occupies the Hôtel-Dieu itself; another is the only five-star directly on Place Bellecour, with its own cooking school; a third fills a majestic 19th-century building with a glass-roofed salon and Rhône views. A fourth decorates its rooms on the theme of Lyon silk and serves dinner with a panorama of the city and river. Everything is on your doorstep, including the metro.

The northern half of the Presqu'île is where Lyon eats and goes out. The streets around Cordeliers and Rue Mercière are thick with bouchons, Place des Terreaux has the town hall, the fine arts museum and a fountain of rearing horses, and the opera house wears a glass barrel roof next door. Climb the slopes beyond and you reach Croix-Rousse, the old silk-weavers' hill, now a village of markets, workshops and cafés with a bohemian streak.

Hotels here have plenty of character. One is a former silk trading house behind a Haussmann-style façade; another, in a handsome 19th-century building, has Lyonnais restaurants within 100 metres of the door; a refined four-star with a spa is a five-minute walk from the Bellecour metro. On the heights of Croix-Rousse, a hotel and spa in an old fort has a panoramic view over the whole city.

South of Bellecour the Presqu'île grows quieter. Ainay is a discreet, well-heeled quarter gathered around its Romanesque abbey church; Perrache is the city's second station; and beyond the tracks lies Confluence, the former docklands where the Rhône and Saône finally meet. It is Lyon's newest neighbourhood: bold apartment blocks, a waterside shopping centre and the Musée des Confluences, a cloud of steel and glass at the very point.

It is a relaxed, practical base. A small hotel of 20 rooms stands steps from the abbey, an Art Deco four-star near Perrache has a terrace with city views, and a family-friendly hotel sits 100 metres from the station. In Confluence, a modern hotel looks over the Saône and connects directly to the shopping centre. Trams and the metro run straight up to Bellecour.

Part-Dieu is Lyon's business district and its main railway station, where the TGVs from Paris pull in and the airport tram departs. It is modern and brisk and a touch charmless, with one great redeeming feature: Les Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse, the covered market where the city's chefs shop and everyone else comes for oysters at eleven in the morning. Just north, Brotteaux is far prettier, a district of Belle Époque apartment buildings and brasseries.

Rooms are newer and cheaper than on the Presqu'île. A stylish hotel stands opposite the station, another occupies the upper floors of the pencil-shaped tower that marks the skyline, and a recently renovated four-star ten minutes away has a pool. In Brotteaux, a 1911 Art Nouveau hotel sits about 500 metres from the Parc de la Tête d'Or. The old town is ten minutes by metro.

The Parc de la Tête d'Or is one of the finest city parks in France: a boating lake, botanical glasshouses, a rose garden and a zoo that costs nothing to enter. Elegant apartment blocks line its southern edge along the Boulevard des Belges. On the far side, between the park and the Rhône, the Cité Internationale is a long curve of red-brick buildings housing the convention centre, a casino and a museum of contemporary art.

Stay here for space and greenery. An elegant all-suite hotel on the Boulevard des Belges is ideal for families, and two large international hotels in the Cité Internationale are the obvious pick for conferences. The trade-off is distance: you will need a bus or taxi to reach the Presqu'île and the old town, though Part-Dieu station is about ten minutes away.

Lyon's eastern suburbs are where the big events happen. Eurexpo, the exhibition centre, is here, the Groupama Stadium is a short drive away, and the airport is closer than the city. Saint-Priest is the handiest base for all three, and for anyone breaking a long drive south to the Alps or the Mediterranean.

Hotels are modern, easy to park at and good value outside fair dates. One four-star is under 15 minutes from Eurexpo, both stadiums and the airport, and its restaurant has a garden terrace; another has an outdoor pool, a sauna and a bar terrace for summer evenings. The historic centre is about 20 km away, so this is not the place for a city break.