Things to Do in Lyon in September

September is vendange season in Beaujolais. The rolling granite-soiled hillsides northwest of Lyon are at their most alive. Tractors rumble between rows of Gamay vines. The sweet-ferment smell of crushed grapes drifts from open cellar doors. Late-afternoon light across the cru villages of Fleurie, Morgon, and Brouilly makes even phone cameras look professional. The vines are heavy and green. Winemakers are energized and talkative in a way they aren't in March. Smaller family domaines that ignore visitors off-season are pouring barrel samples of last year's vintage while this year's fruit comes in. The drive from Lyon's center to southern Beaujolais slopes takes under an hour. A guided tour handles logistics and the designated-driver problem. The tasting pours tend to be generous. This is when you see wine being made, not just sold.

The traboules, covered passageways cutting through buildings to connect parallel streets, are Lyon's most distinctive architectural feature. The Saint-Jean quarter in Vieux Lyon has the densest concentration. In September, crowds thin enough to stop inside a traboule courtyard without blocking foot traffic. Look up at spiral stone staircases and carved window frames that Renaissance silk merchants built to announce their wealth. Hear your own footsteps echo against 500-year-old limestone. The quarter smells like old stone and, on weekend mornings, warm butter of praline tarts from boulangeries along Rue Saint-Jean. Most traboules are technically private property with public right-of-way. Look for small brass plaques marking entrances, easy to walk past if you don't know the system. A guided walk reveals courtyards with the finest carved galleries, including several even longtime Lyon residents have never entered.

Lyon calls itself France's food capital. That claim holds up. The city packs more restaurants per capita than anywhere else in the country. Its cooking tradition stretches from the mères lyonnaises of the 1930s through Paul Bocuse to today's chefs who learned quenelles de brochet and salade lyonnaise at their grandmothers' tables. September brings the bouchons to full stride. These small, checked-tablecloth joints serve Lyonnais comfort food after their August closures. Order cervelle de canut. The name translates to silk workers' brains, but you get a whipped herb-and-shallot cheese spread with sharp tang. Taste the buttery give of a proper quenelle. Try the salade lyonnaise, its edges crisp, its poached egg just runny, its lardons snapping between your teeth. Start at Les Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse. This indoor market has operated since 1971. The cheese mongers alone could detain you for an hour. The charcuterie stalls carry rosette de Lyon and jésus sausages cured in cellars across the Rhône-Alpes.

Fourvière rewards the climb. Walk up the Montée du Chemin Neuf past walled gardens and stray cats sunning on warm stone. Or take the funicular from Vieux Lyon metro. Either way, you get Lyon's commanding panorama. Below lie the terracotta rooftops of the old town. The two rivers converge at the Presqu'île. On clear September mornings, you see the white spine of Mont Blanc floating on the eastern horizon some 200 km (124 miles) away. The Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourvière is aggressively ornate. Its gilded mosaics and painted ceilings approach Byzantine excess. Most visitors find it more opulent than expected from a French church. The incense-and-candle-wax air hangs thick enough to taste. Walk behind the basilica. Here sit the Gallo-Roman amphitheaters, among France's oldest. You can settle onto 2,000-year-old stone tiers still warm from morning sun. You look out over a city the Romans founded as Lugdunum. September's cooler mornings make the uphill walk comfortable. The summit light softens to gold, gentler than summer's bleached-out glare.

Croix-Rousse was the canuts' hill. These silk weavers ran Jacquard looms behind apartment walls in the 19th century. The neighborhood still carries itself like a village grafted onto a city. It has its own market, its own pace, its own quiet conviction that it is Lyon's better half. The open-air market on Boulevard de la Croix-Rousse runs Tuesday through Sunday mornings. In September it overflows with late-summer figs split open to show their pink flesh. Saint-Marcellin cheeses arrive so ripe they are nearly liquid. The first chanterelles and cèpes appear, foraged from hills west of the Rhône. The smell hits you: stone fruit, damp soil, the sharp herbaceous punch of fresh basil stacked in fat bunches. Some cooking classes start with market shopping here. They end in rooftop kitchens above the Saône. You turn September ingredients into dishes you will remember making long after souvenir shop purchases fade from memory. The quarter's traboules see fewer tourists than Vieux Lyon's. They are equally atmospheric. Longer passages trace routes the canuts used to carry silk bolts down to merchants.

South of Lyon, the northern Rhône Valley narrows into France's most dramatically steep vineyards. Terraced granite slopes of Côte-Rôtie and Condrieu rise here. Syrah and Viognier vines cling to gradients so severe that all work is still done by hand. In September, harvest is imminent or underway. The small villages along the river, Ampuis, Condrieu, Saint-Joseph, hum with purposeful energy you will not find the rest of the year. The drive follows the Rhône past medieval Vienne. A Roman temple still stands in the main square. September light catches the river in long silver bands. Tasting rooms in these villages are intimate. Often they are the winemaker's own stone-floored kitchen. The wines run darker, more peppery, more mineral-driven than Beaujolais. They reward attention and patience. The round trip from Lyon fits easily into a day. Driving yourself after tasting through four or five appellations is neither safe nor sensible. A guided tour is the practical choice. Most include lunch in a village bistrot. The wine list is exclusively local. The plat du jour likely involves something braised slowly with the previous vintage.