The Big Pebble

It is no coincidence that this place bears the name of “Esplanade du Gros Caillou” (Esplanade of the Big Pebble). Here you stand in front of the symbol of the Croix Rousse, a heavy rock that traveled almost 200 km to settle here 140,000 years ago. It was discovered in 1861 by the workers who were building the funicular, that would connect the peninsula to Croix Rousse. Whilst digging a trench, they came across this unbreakable rock and had to remove it before they could go on with their job. After a great deal of research, the verdict came through: it was a quartzite rock that had come straight from the Alps transported by glaciers ! It ended its journey here and remained buried for many years before being discovered. Now called the “Gros Caillou” (Big Pebble), it is the subject of a rather peculiar legend said to be a metaphor for inhumanity. The stone supposedly represents the heart of a court bailif named Jean Tournette. It is said that after ruthlessly evicting a family of silk workers from their home, he was condemned to push around his heart of stone until he found someone greedier than himself.. Of course, his heart grew as he pushed it, thus until the day he found someone more malicious than himself. This stone block is far from being the only one to be seen in Lyon, but it remains the most symbolic!