Sofitel Lyon Bellecour

For all its MICHELIN-starred restaurants, its twisting Roman passageways and cobblestone streets, its famous and lovely river bisecting the city, its own spindly metal tower from the late nineteenth century, its art and its film and not least its 2,000-year-old theater scene — for all that, alas, Lyon will never quite elbow Paris out of the limelight. But France’s second city is no second fiddle; if the Sofitel in the city center tells us anything, it tells us that Lyon has no trouble pulling off a gleaming glass cube of a modern design hotel — glowing green check-in desk, asymmetrical furniture, wall-mounted metallic sunbursts and all.

In many ways, the Sofitel here is quintessentially Lyonnaise — a central location on the banks of the Rhône, a Michelin-starred restaurant among its several onsite dining and nightlife venues, and a distinctive, undeniable Frenchness about the whole affair. And much as they tend to do in Paris, rooms come in two sizes: tiny or enormous, superior or suite.

But while Paris and its visitors often wish to crystalize a certain Haussmannian moment in the city’s past, the tendency in Lyon is more an era-hopping post-modern one. (See the amphitheaters for evidence, Roman- or Renzo Piano–designed, your choice.) Thus you find the Sofitel, a very forward-looking hotel in a modernist-style building, just around the corner from the cobblestone streets and antique dealers of the vieux carré. And just for good measure, the hotel has its own 1970s-inspired restaurant alongside the one with a Michelin star. If that doesn’t speak to its self-assuredness, we don’t know what does.

How to get there:
Sofitel Lyon Bellecour is 10 minutes away, by car, from Gare Part-Dieu TGV Station.