France’s second city is not only its gastronomic capital
– it has become a leading football hub. Lyon probably has more top restaurants per square mile than anywhere else on earth and could field its own football team of top chefs. But it now has a real football team attracting attention in the city.
Flagship club Olympique Lyonnais have now won three league titles in a row after five decades of hard graft and have finally shown they can with the compete with the cram of Europe in the UEFA Champions League.
法甲的三连冠，这支球队在五十年后终于也踏上了欧洲八强的征程
A new influx of European fans are discovering a little-known cultured city, with an old quarter, excellent fine arts collections, Roman ruins, Renaissance treasures and a state-of-the-art transport system.
With three huge teams - UEFA Champions League entrants Fenerbahçe SK as well as Besiktas JK and Galatasaray SK - Istanbul, the city in two continents, has a sporting passion to match its dramatic history. This season is particularly special for the city as the Atatürk Olympic Stadium it will play host to the Champions League final on 25 May.
The first evidence of living communities on both European and Anatolian side of Istanbul date all the way back to 6000BC, while by 3000BC intensive settlement activity started in and around the Sultanahmet area of today. Istanbul was founded as Byzantium by the Greeks in 600BC, became part of the Roman Empire in 73AD, became Constantinople in 324, was conquered by the Crusaders between 1204 and 1261 and took its present name in present-day Turkey in 1930.
