What if the city of Lyon was overwhelmed by a wave of American tourists this summer? The hypothesis is unlikely, even if some curious people, attracted by the prose of the New York journalist Lily Radziemski published in the Washington Post, could land in the Capital of Gaul.
“A real treasure hunt”
Because yes, the American press is (still) interested in our cultural wealth. This time, it is the famous traboules of the city that are dissected. “In Lyon’s network of hidden passages, traces of the past”, headlines the capital’s media.
“For tourists from Lyon, tracking down the traboules and sneaking through them has become an activity, which is akin to a real treasure hunt”. In her article, Lily Radziemski describes the adrenaline she felt walking through these hidden passages and discovering their history. She meets, moreover, Jacques Rossiaud, specialist in the history of the city, to learn the least secrets.
The historian takes the opportunity to bust a myth: “Lyon was the capital of the Resistance between 1940 and 1944, and a certain number of people say ‘yes’, we had the traboules in Lyon, it was good, because that we could hide. It’s true, if you will, but it doesn’t really correspond to reality. We could hide otherwise. »
“There is not much to find”
“It has become an essential element of Lyon, but when you dig a little, there is not much to find”, slips a little further in the article, Damien Petermann, author of a thesis on the image of Lyon in travel guides in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Those who live in Vieux-Lyon or the slopes of the Croix-Rousse can be reassured, Lily Radziemski reminds her compatriots, in conclusion, that the traboules “are private spaces”. At least the Americans are warned.
But what exactly is a traboule?
It seems obvious for the Lyonnais, but it is not necessarily so for the others. The traboules are covered pedestrian passages, sometimes dark and mysterious, which make it possible to circulate from one street to another passing under the houses and dwellings, via corridors, courtyards, stairs and tutti quanti.
If their name comes from Latin transambular which means pass throughthey partly illustrate Lyon: there are more than four hundred traboules, more than half of which are in Vieux-Lyon.