Every design for Oullins

Oullins sits on the right bank of the Rhône, immediately south-west of Lyon, at the spot where the little Yzeron slips under a motorway bridge and runs into the great river. Upstream, the Yzeron valley narrows quickly into a gorge.

Behind the town rises the hill of Montmein, which is why some neighbourhoods are so steep; its granite was once quarried for kerbstones and for the foundations of the Fourvière basilica. Lyon's well-off families built country houses here in the sixteenth century, and the town still has its old houses, the Château de la Bachasse and the Manoir du Grand-Perron among them. Then came the Saint-Étienne to Lyon railway, the first in France, and the flat land by the river filled with workshops serving the railway and the waterway. Since 2013 the Métro's line B has run here, and on 1 January 2024 Oullins merged with Pierre-Bénite to form Oullins-Pierre-Bénite. For a breath of air, there is the Parc Chabrières-Arlès.

If you learned to ride a bike on those slopes, or still take line B home in the evening, this stretch of the Rhône is yours to keep.