Villa Florentine

About

Villa Florentine occupies one of Lyon’s most enviable addresses, high on Fourvière, the hill locals call la colline qui prie, the hill that prays. The nickname dates back centuries when convents and religious houses dominated the area. Today one of those former religious buildings serves a different purpose. The sisters have left. The panoramic terrace remained. The hotel began life as a seventeenth century convent and still carries traces of that past. You pass through stone arcades and quiet courtyards before reaching views that suddenly open across Lyon’s sea of terracotta roofs. The city spreads below in layers. Church towers emerge between the buildings and the Saône bends through the scene almost as if someone placed it there for composition. Its Italian influence is genuine rather than invented by an enthusiastic interior designer. Lyon absorbed a wave of Florentine culture after the marriage of Henri IV and Marie de Médicis, and parts of the building still reflect that inheritance. A few restored details from the old chapel remain, small reminders that the building has had several lives before becoming a hotel. Book a room with a city view. Really. At many hotels that suggestion feels optional. Here it changes the experience completely. Breakfast on the terrace has a tendency to last longer than intended. One coffee becomes two, then suddenly you are reconsidering whether walking back down into Lyon is urgently necessary.