Living in Montchat, Lyon

Montchat is the eastern end of the 3e Arrondissement, sitting on a low rise of glacial gravel above the plain, with Villeurbanne to the north and Bron to the east. Both of those are separate communes, not Lyon districts, and the boundary matters when you read an address. Montchat was not a village that the city swallowed: it was laid out on purpose in the middle of the nineteenth century as an estate of small plots, and it still looks like it.

What it is

A grid of narrow streets carrying two-storey houses with gardens, wisteria over the doorways, cedars and plane trees. The landowner Jean Louis Richard-Vitton started the development after the Rhône flood of 1856 made high ground attractive, cut the land into parcels of a few hundred square metres, and kept industry out. The ground climbs from about 178 metres to 208, which is enough to feel on a bicycle and to give the streets around the Parc Chambovet a real slope. The Église Notre-Dame-du-Bon-Secours, begun in 1874 and consecrated twenty years later, stands at the centre, and the Cours Richard-Vitton runs through as the shopping street, at its busiest between the Place Antoinette and the Place Ronde.

Who lives here

Owner-occupying families, in large part the same families for a long time. Couples with children who wanted a garden and could not afford one closer in, older residents who bought decades ago, some professionals working at the hospitals a kilometre to the south. This is the quietest social profile in eastern Lyon. It also means rooms are scarce: most of the housing is single-family houses rather than blocks of flats, so what comes up tends to be a room in a house or a flat in one of the few small apartment buildings along the main streets.

What it's like during the day

Suburban in the good sense. Children walk to school, people garden, the Cours Richard-Vitton has the bakery and the pharmacy and the café where everyone stops. The Parc Chambovet on the high side gives a view east across the plain. Traffic is local, because none of the streets go anywhere in particular, and that is the whole point of the layout. It is noticeably greener and noticeably quieter than the rest of the 3e.

What it's like in the evening

Very quiet. A handful of restaurants and bars on the Cours Richard-Vitton and around the Place Ronde, mostly the kind you go to with neighbours rather than to start an evening. Nothing after eleven. If you want a night out you go west into the 3e or across to the Guillotière, and you come back by bus or bicycle.

Getting around

There is no station inside Montchat, and that is the single fact that should decide it for you. The nearest metro is line D at Grange Blanche, at the south-west corner: about a kilometre from the church, half as much again from the Place Ronde. Tram T3 passes along the northern side and its nearest stop is roughly five hundred metres north of the Place Ronde, on the Villeurbanne side of the line. Otherwise it is buses, and they are good: a trunk line runs straight to Bellecour, another to the Cité Internationale by way of Grange Blanche, another to Part-Dieu station, which is under three kilometres away. Cycling is the sensible default, with the small caveat that you come home uphill.

Eating and shopping

Enough for daily life and no more. Bakeries, a butcher, a greengrocer, a couple of small supermarkets and a scattering of restaurants on the Cours Richard-Vitton and near the Place Ronde. A food market sets up by the church twice a week. For anything beyond that, Part-Dieu is a short bus ride west and has everything. Nobody comes to Montchat to shop, and residents do not seem to mind.

When NOT to pick it

Wrong if you do not want to walk or cycle to a station, because there is none here and the bus is the daily reality. Wrong if you want street life, late food or a bar within reach on foot. Wrong if you are looking for a cheap room: house shares in a quiet family quarter are not the bottom of the Lyon market, and there are few of them. It is the right choice if you want a garden, silence and a village grid inside the city, with a straight bus into the centre and the hospitals within walking distance. If you want the same eastern side of Lyon with a metro at the door, look south-west to Grange Blanche or Monplaisir; if you want cheaper and livelier, look west towards the Préfecture quarter or north into Villeurbanne.