Named France’s top museum in the 2023 World Art Awards, Lyon’s Fine Arts museum has an outstanding collection of paintings and sculpture including Etruscan, Egyptian, Phoenician, Sumerian, and Persian art.  The top floor holds one of France’s richest 19th-century collections, with works by artists from Veronese, Tintoretto, and Rubens to Matisse, Monet, and Picasso. Be sure to see Joseph Chinard’s bust of Mme. Récamier, the Lyon beauty who charmed Napoleonic Paris by merely reclining, and the Fantin-Latour masterpiece La Lecture (The Reading). The museum's setting, a handsome former Benedictine abbey, only adds to its appeal.