Villefranche sur Saone

No quayside and no Saone. You have to go through the industrial zone to see the pretty river. The capital of the Beaujolais region it is true, but Lyons has stolen the limelight by appropriating a third river, the Beaujolais, immediately after the Rhône and when it already had the Saône too
Former marshland, this town has been however , for more than a century now, inundated by a wave that is now famous: the Vague. If Beaujeu is the historic capital of the Beaujolais, Villefranche is no doubt its economic, industrial, cultural and commercial centre.
Its famous rue Nat’ is doubly steep and for centuries now people have come to roll their crowns down it. A market used to be held on the stones (calades)of the square in front of the church and it is to this that the town dwellers owe their name-the “Caladois”.
You come therefore to Villefranche to spend money, earned in the vineyards in the factory or elsewhere. It is a town of human dimension, calm, in which it is pleasant to live, a town to visit with some lovely Renaissance buildings and a superb collegiate between North and South for those who fear to get lost in Lyons.