Steep stepped streets and covered passages climb the hill between rendered apartment blocks with tall, shutterless windows.
What La Croix-Rousse looks like
Rendered apartment blocks climb the hill in rows of five and six storeys, their windows tall and set without shutters or decorative surrounds. The streets between them are steep and stepped in places, narrow enough that parked cars line both kerbs.
Covered traboule passages cut straight through the blocks, linking one street to the next through a courtyard or a stone stairway. The , a traboule and stairway at place Colbert, still keeps its original stone steps between the walls.
Boulevard de la Croix-Rousse runs along the ridge, a weekly outdoor market filling about a kilometre of it from Tuesday to Sunday. , a stone building behind an iron fence, sits on the same boulevard. The boules ground spreads out nearby, a wide gravel square.
The , a large trompe l'oeil mural on boulevard des Canuts, covers a building wall with painted scenes of the silk trade. , at place Rouville, repeats rows of identical windows across its facade and is known locally as the house of 365 windows.
, on the pentes, stands beside place Bellevue. The France 2 series Chérif filmed its police precinct exterior there.
Shot in La Croix-Rousse
The France 2 series Chérif filmed its police precinct exterior on place Bellevue, on the pentes of the 1st arrondissement. The hero's on screen apartment looks out from rue Bodin, the street that climbs away from the square.
Chérif, France 2
Place Bellevue
The exterior of Kader Chérif's precinct is shot on place Bellevue, beside Fort Saint-Laurent. The kiosk where the characters eat lunch is a production addition built on the square, and the police station's own entrance is also invented rather than a real doorway. Street View
Montmartre's own steep stepped streets and stone stairways give it the same hillside workers' quarter scale as the pentes of the Croix-Rousse, both climbing from a flat city below to a plateau above. Montmartre's facades mix stone and render with more ornamented ironwork, and the basilica dominates wide shots. A tight street level frame on a stepped lane holds the match better than a wide view. Try searching steep stepped streets now.
Le Panier's narrow rendered lanes and plain facades with no balconies read close to the pentes. Lyon's own production base also makes the hill a practical stand in for a Marseille shoot day. Marseille's light runs warmer and more Mediterranean, and Le Panier's facades carry brighter paint colours. An overcast day or a cooler grade keeps Lyon's own light from giving it away. Try searching narrow rendered lanes now.
Edinburgh, Scotland
Edinburgh's Old Town closes are the narrow stepped passages opening off the Royal Mile. They suggest the same idea as a Croix-Rousse traboule, a covered way cut through a dense hillside block. Edinburgh's closes are stone rather than rendered plaster and run between taller tenements. Only a tight frame on the passage itself, without the surrounding facades, holds the comparison. Try searching narrow stepped passages now.
