The Musée de la Civilisation Gallo-Romaine (the Museum of Gallo-Roman Civilization), located on the site of the city’s the Roman theater seeks to tell the story of Lyon’s Roman years through an astounding collection of art and artifacts from the region. France’s second largest museum, the institution presents is holdings in 17 rooms, each organized around a central object and with a unifying theme.

The Musée d'Art Contemporain (Museum of Contemporary Art) specializes, as one would guess, in modern visual art creations. What one might not guess (as it is a one-of-a-kind institution) is that the museum’s collections are based around works created completely on-site by the artists themselves.

Taking a more traditional approach, the Musée des Beaux Arts (Museum of Fine Arts) is France’s second leading fine arts museum, behind only the Louvre, with a spectacular collection of paintings and sculptures that include masterworks of nearly every style and school. The museum also has a fine collection other art objects from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance to Art Deco and Art Nouveau, and of antiquities, with a number of displays focusing on the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Sumeria, Cyprus, Greece and the Rome.