Fête des lumières 2008

Finally I'm going to blog about the fête des lumières (an annual light festival in Lyon) The actual festival is on the 8th of December, but the city is usually lighted up for the weekend closest to it. This year the 8th fell on a Monday, so we went out on the 6th, Saturday night.

I haven't been to Lyon's fête des lumières since my first year in INSA, and that was three years ago! Luckily, according to the others, this year's was the best, so it seems I didn't miss much. During the festival, the buildings in town are lighted up...look at the photos to find out more! (I have Ping Tarng to thank for quite a number of these photos; I chose to post his when they're better than mine!)

This was at Place des Célestins (the building is a theatre, I believe)





Place des Jacobins:

fontaine de poissons (fountain of fish); see the shadows?

from the riverbank

that's Fourvière on top of the hill

while crossing a bridge

a boat on the river

Then there is the cathédrale St Jean.

If the colours didn't change, we could've thought they were painted! I thought this was the best...till we went to Terreaux.

Gare St Paul:


Place des Terreaux (where the town hall is):

the horses move! ;)

There was actually a story about a baby giant who was playing with his toys. Here the splotches of colour were his doing and he is writing on the wall.

inside the town hall


Just so you manage to appreciate exactly what an awesome feat this lighting is, here is a photo of the cathédrale St Jean on a normal day (I wanted to put photos of the other buildings for comparison as well, but I either don't have them or don't have them handy. And I'm lazy :P)


That's all folks! ;) Stay tuned for my Greek adventures :P