Rue Sainte-Catherine (Lyon) 2.04

The rue Sainte-Catherine is a very old street at the foot of the slopes of La Croix-Rousse quarter, in the 1st arrondissement of Lyon. It is particularly known for being a drinking street. The street belongs to the zone classified as World Heritage Site by UNESCO.LocationThe rue Sainte-Catherine has an east-west axis and is parallel of the Place des Terreaux, and therefore is in the historic center of Lyon, overlooking the Hôtel de Ville of the 1st arrondissement. This situation is relatively unusual because it is quite rare for a street with a bad reputation to be as close to the City Hall of a big city, to the richest shopping areas (rue Édouard-Herriot, rue de la République...), to the Opera Nouvel and to the Musée des beaux-arts de Lyon : this is a paradox indeed very representative of the spirit of the slopes of the Croix-Rousse quarter, which the last "flat" street before the slopes, the rue Sainte-Catherine, is the natural boundary, geographic alter ego of the Boulevard de la Croix-Rousse.HistoryThe street was first named rue de la Fontaine in the sixteenth century, as a source belonging to the Hospice de la Charité provided drinking water to the entire neighborhood, then rue de la Commission temporaire after 1793.