Overview

This stone is more than just a curiosity, sitting as it does at the end of the Boulevard de la Croix-Rousse, just a stone's throw away from the Place Bellevue.. There are two stories.... one is a legend and the other is the scientific explanation. Legend has it that the stone is the heart of a legal bailiff which was turned to stone as a form of vengeance on the part of people who had been wronged by him. Geologists believe that the stone is a rock fragment left over from the Jurassic period which must have been left there during the last ice age. Everyone has their own explanation but whatever it is, it must certainly have been a surprise when they tunneled into the hill in 1890 to make way for the railway and found this great big stone!