To offer a quick history lesson, December 8 is the Fête des lumières (Festival of Lights) in Lyon. The one sentence history is that it is essentially celebrated to thank the Virgin Mary for saving Lyon from the Plague back in the day. The simplistic tradition is the the Basilique de Notre Dame de Fourvière (built in honor of the Virgin Mary) is lit up and the people of Lyon put little candles in their windows. Of course, today things cannot be that simple, and the fête des lumières has become quite the spectacle. It now lasts 3-4 days, and all the major monuments in town are lit up in some really fantastic way. The main part of the celebration, though, is still on December 8, and the entire population of Lyon, plus a bunch of tourists, hit the streets and go out to see the various animations set up around town.
Walking around town was a little like the annual luminaria walk on Christmas Eve in Albuquerque (which I am going to miss terribly this year...hopefully I will get pictures *wink wink nudge nudge*)...only times a bazillion. Everywhere we went was full of people, and most of the time I felt like I was just getting carried along with the waves of people. I went out Thursday and Friday night for a little while as well, and I thought it was crowded then, but tonight was overwhelming. I met up with Céline (my host sister from when I was here 3 years ago) and a couple of her girlfriends.
We went first to Place Bellecour (essentially the center of town), where the statue of Louis XIV has been made into a snow globe, and their are neon signs on the base of the statue, which say "I Love Lyon" and "Only Lyon" (in English). There is also a ferris wheel and there are kebab/crêpe/vin chaud stands all over the place and music and all kinds of stuff. We spent at least 20 minutes trying to find another of their friends, and then took some pictures, and then headed in the direction of Hôtel de Ville.
We thought we were being really clever by taking a side street instead of the main road that runs between Place Bellecour and Hôtel de Ville, but it turns out that wasn't a very good idea. There were a ton of people and it was pretty much impossible to move. It would normally take maybe 10 minutes to make the trip, but it took us a good 30-45 minutes. Plus, thanks to the motion of the crowd, we had to pass by the Théâtre des Célestins, which was the part I've really been wanting to see. But there wasn't much we could do cuz the crowd definitely had it's own plans for us. When we got to Hôtel de Ville, the crowds were even worse. At one point, I was actually afraid for my life a little bit because we were completely coincé (stuck) in this little section of street and this guy decided to be clever and climb the scaffolding of a building. In the process, he broke the neon sign of one of the stores and everyone started freaking out and then people were trying to go under the scaffolding, which made me a little nervous because of how many people there were pushing and shoving, and the possibility of the scaffolding not holding up.
We made it out alive and got to the Place des Terreaux, which is in front of Hôtel de Ville, and we oohed and aahed at the giant ball of stained glass that gets lit up from different directions and there are smoke machines and it's all very fancy. I think I got some pretty cool pictures of it. By this point, the girls were getting hungry and a little tired of being pushed around, so we made our way to the quais trying to find a restaurant or café or kebab shop that wasn't insanely crowded, but to no avail and we ended up wandering in the direction of Perrache, where Céline and her friends had to catch buses home. It felt like we had been out walking around forever, but it was really only about 9:30. They were ready to try to catch buses, though, so we kept going in that direction.
After they left me at Perrache, I decided that I really wanted to go to the Théâtre des Célestins by myself because I had seen pictures of the light show there and it seemed really cool. So, I stopped at the pancake shop at the Christmas market near Perrache to get some yumminess and energy to brave the crowd again, and dove in. There were slightly less people at this point, but it still took me a while to make it from Perrache, across Place Bellecour, and to Célestins, where I stayed for a while taking pictures because it was just that cool. Basically, they were projecting images onto the front of the building. Using relatively simple images repeated over and over, they created king of a sliding puzzle effect. I don't really know how to explain it, but it was really beautiful and I took pictures of all of the different patterns.
Right about the time my camera battery started to die, they shut off the lights for a little while, and the crowd carried me off toward something else. I was pretty much ready to go home, so I was making my way slowly but surely in that direction. I ended up stopping at the hospital, the main court of which was filled with what looked like a vineyard, but instead of grapes there were lights, which changed colors. It was pretty cool. I hung out there for a while just kind of soaking in the atmosphere and thinking about my grandpa and having a very peaceful little moment. Even amidst the craziness that was continuing around me, which was nice.
Finally, I got back out to the street, put my headphones, and made the trek home. There were still SO many people out. It was really quite amazing the amount of people I saw in the streets of Lyon tonight. They were everywhere.
And that was essentially my night. This description does nothing for the experience of being in that big of a crowd or experiencing these massive presentations of light and color and sound. But I needed to write it anyway, and at least try to share it. If you ever have the chance to come to Lyon, do it in early December and catch this. Highly overwhelming and even a little frightening at times, but the experience is totally worth it.
I have a lot more to say, both about the Fête and abut life in general (because I've been crazy busy and unable to keep up--I'm sorry GG, I will try to do better so you have something to read on your daily persusals of this blog), but I'm starting to fall asleep, so I shall stop here and say à demain.
Goodnight and GROS bisous!
1 comment:
that sounds AMAZING! and i will of course take pictures of luminarias and everything. <3
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