The story of Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon

On the south side of Place des Terreaux, behind a calm facade, lies one of the largest art museums in France. The building was the Royal Abbey of Saint-Pierre-les-Nonnains, a Benedictine convent whose abbesses always came from the high French nobility. After the Revolution drove the nuns out, it gradually became a museum.

Its collections run from ancient Egypt to modern art. In the Egyptian rooms, look for the gates of Ptolemy III and Ptolemy IV from the temple of Medamud. The paintings range from the 14th to the mid-20th century: Veronese and Tintoretto, El Greco and Zurbarán, Rubens and Rembrandt, Poussin, Delacroix, Degas, Gauguin and Van Gogh, then Matisse, Picasso and Bacon.

Don't miss the baroque refectory, with two monumental paintings on the theme of dining. And when you need a rest, step into the old cloister, now a public garden in the city centre, where sculptures by Auguste Rodin stand among the trees.