Around Lyon

How do you drive around Lyon?

« Going around Lyon means trading a tunnel for villages built of golden stone, and the pleasure of driving. »

Route verified on 4 August 2026 · We'd rather take the long way round.

Why driving through Lyon is such hard work

Lyon is built on a geographical lock: the city narrows between the hill of Fourvière and the Croix-Rousse, exactly where the Rhône and the Saône come together. All the north–south traffic of the Rhône valley squeezes into that gap. For decades the motorway ran literally through the city along the rivers, and the compulsory passage is still the famous Fourvière tunnel.

Around it, the only major urban bypass, the Laurent Bonnevay ring road to the east, concentrates the flows in its turn. So whether you are coming down from the north or going back up from the south, you get pulled into the city when, more often than not, you were only passing by.

In practice, La Route Buissonnière keeps you off :

• the Fourvière tunnel and the drive along the quays (the old A6/A7 beside the rivers);
• the Laurent Bonnevay ring road to the east;
• the main Rhône valley axis alongside the built-up area.

Routing around Lyon in three steps

1. Open La Route Buissonnière and enter your start and destination (say, Mâcon → Saint-Étienne).
2. Add Lyon as a city to avoid, or simply let the app route around it.
3. Follow the route: it takes you along the back roads, well clear of the city.

A real example: Mâcon → Saint-Étienne without crossing Lyon

1. Leaving Mâcon, you come down through the Beaujolais vineyards: slopes of vines instead of dual carriageways, past Belleville-en-Beaujolais and then Villefranche-sur-Saône.
2. You enter the country of the Pierres Dorées, those villages of ochre limestone that catch the light: Theizé, Frontenas, Bagnols and Chessy, above the Azergues valley.
3. You keep to the west of the city through L'Arbresle, then cross the foothills of the Monts du Lyonnais at Saint-Laurent-de-Chamousset, far from the ring road.
4. You drop at last into the Forez through Chazelles-sur-Lyon, once the capital of French hat-making, and Saint-Médard-en-Forez, before reaching Saint-Étienne — Lyon left behind without seeing either the tunnel or the ring road.

Other drives where going around Lyon makes sense : coming down from Burgundy to the Forez or the Rhône valley without the Lyon knot; linking the Beaujolais to the western hills; reaching the south on small roads.

What you get for going around Lyon

The road stops being a corridor. The ochre walls of the golden-stone villages hold the late-afternoon light, the Beaujolais vine rows drop towards the Azergues, and the horizon slowly opens towards the hills of the Forez. You drive a little slower, you look a great deal more, you wind the window down.

And at the end you reach Saint-Étienne over the Forez ridges, without having endured the city or its tunnel. The road here is no longer time lost — it is already the journey.

Why doesn't La Route Buissonnière go through the centre?

Frequently asked questions

Enter your start and destination in La Route Buissonnière and add Lyon as a city to avoid: the route then goes around the city on small roads, well clear of the tunnel.

Barely, in distance: on our Mâcon → Saint-Étienne example the buissonnière route is actually 900 metres shorter than the motorway route. It is the time that changes, with 53 minutes more, measured on 4 August 2026 — the price of hillside roads.

Yes: the route stays clear of the Laurent Bonnevay ring road and of the main axes through the built-up area. An option also lets you avoid tolls.

La Route Buissonnière · an independent project, made in France, with no advertising.