Living in Confluence, Lyon

Confluence is the last two kilometres of Lyon's peninsula, in the 2e Arrondissement, with the Saône on one side, the Rhône on the other and the point where they join at the bottom. It was a port, a rail yard, a wholesale market and two prisons; from the mid-1990s it was rebuilt almost from scratch. What decides whether you should live here is not that history but two present facts: nearly everything is new construction, and the tip is a long way from anywhere on foot.

What it is

A quarter of new mid-rise blocks laid out along the cours Charlemagne, with the quai Rambaud on the Saône side and the quai Perrache on the Rhône side. A dock basin, the Place Nautique, is cut into the middle of it. The old brick and concrete that survived was reused rather than replaced: La Sucrière, a former sugar warehouse on the quai Rambaud, is now an exhibition hall. At the very point stands the Musée des Confluences, and the regional council has its headquarters most of a kilometre north of it. The northern edge, around Sainte-Blandine, is the older part, nineteenth-century and tighter, and it feels like a different quartier from the glass further south.

Who lives here

Mostly people who arrived with the buildings. Couples in their late twenties and thirties, professionals working in the offices on site or at Part-Dieu, young families with one child, and a real share of tenants in the subsidised flats built into the same blocks. Very few long-established Lyonnais, because there was almost nothing to be established in. Students are thin on the ground: the rents on new stock are not student rents, even though the ENS campus is one bridge away.

What it's like during the day

Bright, wide and calm, with more sky than most of Lyon. Office workers fill the cours Charlemagne at lunchtime and empty it again at six. The shopping and leisure centre by the Place Nautique is the practical centre of gravity and draws people in from across the city. The quays are the best part: a continuous walking and cycling route north along the Saône and a park at the point. It is quiet in a way that some people find restful and others find empty.

What it's like in the evening

Residential and subdued, with two exceptions. The centre keeps its cinemas and restaurants going into the evening, and a few of the old warehouses on the quai Rambaud work as concert and club venues, so a handful of streets have late nights while the rest of the quarter has none. There is no bar street in the ordinary Lyon sense. For that, people cross to the Guillotière or walk up the peninsula.

Getting around

Two tram lines run the length of the quarter, T1 and T2, and both link it to Perrache, where metro line A starts. Line A is the fast way to Bellecour and the rest of the centre. The Pont Raymond-Barre carries the T1 tram, pedestrians and cyclists across the Rhône to Gerland, and takes no cars at all, which makes the eastern crossing much better on foot or by bike than by car. The thing to check on a map is the north end: Perrache station and its road interchange sit like a wall between Confluence and the rest of the peninsula, and getting past them on foot means a specific route rather than a straight line. From the museum end it is close to two kilometres to Perrache and about three to Bellecour, so this is a tram quarter, not a walking-into-town quarter.

Eating and shopping

Convenient rather than characterful. The shopping centre covers a full supermarket, chains and a cinema, and there are cafés, bakeries and restaurants along the cours Charlemagne and around the docks, most of them opened with the buildings. What is missing is the layer of small independent food shops that older quartiers have, and there is no daily street market of the Croix-Rousse kind. Anything specialised means a tram ride north.

When NOT to pick it

Wrong if you want old Lyon: the fabric is new, the streets are wide and the courtyard-and-traboule city stops at Perrache. Wrong if you want to walk into the centre in ten minutes, or if you rely on a lively street at night. Wrong, too, if you like a dense neighbourhood texture, because the blocks are large and the ground floors are not all shops. It is the right choice if you want a modern, well-insulated flat with light and water views, a tram at the door and a quiet evening, and if you would rather have a new building than a nineteenth-century one. If you want the same modern stock with more life around it, look across the Rhône at Gerland; if you want the peninsula but the old version, look north to Bellecour and the streets around it.