Grand Lac of the Parc de la Tête d'Or and Île du Souvenir
Why is it significant?
Step to the water's edge to embrace the sparkling expanse of the Grand Lac in the Parc de la Tête d'Or, a magnificent sixteen-hectare artificial lake created in 1857 by the renowned Swiss landscape architects Denis and Eugène Bühler.
Key Facts
| Place | Grand Lac of the Parc de la Tête d'Or and Île du Souvenir |
|---|---|
| Address | Allée du Lac 1, 69006 Lyon, France |
| Geo Coordinates | 45.77750, 4.85400 |
| Part of Walk | Rhône Riverbanks and Parc de la Tête d'Or: River Promenades, Glasshouses, and Rose Gardens |
| Generated | Generated |
Step to the water's edge to embrace the sparkling expanse of the Grand Lac in the Parc de la Tête d'Or, a magnificent sixteen-hectare artificial lake created in 1857 by the renowned Swiss landscape architects Denis and Eugène Bühler. Fashioned by diverting an abandoned oxbow meander of the Rhône across this formerly marshy floodplain, the lake serves as the romantic centerpiece of the park, where mute swans, mallard ducks, and wooden rowboats glide across mirror-like waters fringed with weeping willows and bald cypresses. In the center of the lake rises the wooded Île du Souvenir, formerly known as Swan Island, transformed between 1924 and 1930 into a monumental World War I memorial designed by Lyon's visionary civic architect Tony Garnier in collaboration with sculptors Jean-Baptiste Larrivé and the Chauvet brothers. To preserve the unbroken pastoral illusion of the landscape, Garnier refused to construct an above-ground bridge: instead, visitors reach the island through an extraordinary underground stone tunnel beneath the lake bed, emerging before a white marble cenotaph inscribed with the names of ten thousand fallen soldiers. The serene atmosphere is profoundly moving.
Gaze across the water from the southern shore: the rolling, English-style landscape lawns and strategically placed groves of trees completely conceal the surrounding city, creating the magical sensation of being deep in the open countryside.
The mysterious name Tête d'Or originates from an enduring medieval legend: a priceless solid gold head of Christ was allegedly buried in these marshes by crusaders or Templars, a fabled treasure fruitlessly searched for during the 1857 excavation of the lake.
Note Tony Garnier's subterranean stone tunnel: the dimly lit passageway beneath the lake was deliberately conceived to quiet the mind and prepare pilgrims for solemn remembrance on the sacred island above.
Follow the eastern lake path southward to reach the transparent iron-and-glass dome of the Grandes Serres.