La Fête des Lumières

My first experience of Lyon was last year in early December during the Fête des Lumières and the weekend of my friend Sadie’s birthday.  This is the biggest weekend for tourism in Lyon, with the population basically tripling to see all of the magical light displays throughout the city.  There was mulled wine for sale on every corner late into the night.  The streets and metros were packed to the brim with people.  Trying to get anywhere was a huge annoyance.

This year was no different.  Except I actually took the time to go and see many of the light shows with my friend Tim who came to town for the weekend from Madrid where he’s doing a master’s in Spanish linguistics.  He’d already been to Lyon before and really loved it so he wanted to come visit, haphazardly choosing the same weekend as the Fête.

Friday was our first full day of activities, and since the metro workers were on strike and the metros were down until about 4 pm, we decided to hang around in Villeurbanne until then.  We got some fun marzipan pigs from the local boulangerie and enjoyed the massive snowflakes from indoors

Once the metro was back up and running, our first stop was the big Christmas market in the 2^nd arrondissement where we tried some foie gras for the first time.

 

We almost immediately got some vin chaud (mulled/hot wine) and took a gander at the different stalls.  It was basically freezing and snowing/raining the entire weekend, and around dinnertime it started to rain a bit so we took cover under a stand and got some tartiflette, a regional speciality consisting of potatoes, very French cheese, onions and lardons (small pieces of ham).  I went to the same stand last year with Sadie and the guy stirring the big pot was wearing a cool traditional costume while he worked.

Once the weather cleared up we headed towards Vieux Lyon for a crepe and a hot chocolate.

We stayed in a small crepe restaurant until it got dark and the first illuminations were about to begin.  We were in the Saint Jean area so we headed to the Cathédrale Saint Jean first for what was one of the best shows of the festival.  This particular show lasted over 10 minutes, with statues seeming to come out of the windows and changing the appearance of the cathedral.

So then we headed across to Bellecour, the biggest square in Lyon, to see some more lights.  One of the coolest shows was one that was generated by volunteers on bikes from the local city bike rental system.  They would peddle and this large cube would light up and do fancy things until the end when it shot off fireworks.

Some other highlights of the night:

We headed back to Villeurbanne around 10 o’clock maybe because it was freezing and drizzling and the crowds were unbearable.  On the walk back from the metro station we came across what seemed like the most random play being performed in front of the City Hall of Villeurbanne.  It was something of the steampunk genre apparently.  However it was poorly planned because we were maybe two of 15 people who wandered over to see what all the noise was.

Saturday night was especially freezing, but luckily the metro was free in the evening when we wanted to go.  Tim and I met up with Iris and Martina who were in Lyon to see the festival as well for the night.  We met up at Bellecour and went on the ferris wheel together which was by far the coldest ferris wheel I’ve been on.

After the extremely frigid ride, Iris and Martina and Tim and I split up.  Tim and I took to a bookstore to bum around while the feeling came back in our toes and hands.  Afterwards we headed to about two more shows before returning home because we’d had enough of the crowds and cold and Tim had to wake up early in the morning to get back to Madrid.

And finally, here's the video I took at Cathedrale Saint-Jean.  Enjoy!