Gare de Lyon

The Gare de Lyon is one of the seven main line railway stations of Paris, France, standing in the twelfth arrondissement on the right bank of the Seine and serving as the northern terminus of the Paris to Marseille railway. The original station on the site opened in 1849, but the building recognized today was built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle and inaugurated on April 6, 1901, designed by the architect Marius Toudoire and decorated inside with a fresco by Jean-Baptiste Olive. Its most distinctive feature is the large clock tower rising from one corner of the building, a landmark of the Paris skyline. The station today handles about 148.1 million passengers a year, the second-busiest in France after the Gare du Nord, with 32 platforms across two halls carrying high-speed TGV trains to southern and eastern France, Switzerland, Germany, Italy and Spain, alongside regional and RER services.