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The coming of December brings not only much cold weather, but also the year’s shortest days. On the 8th of December, Lyon celebrates la fête des lumières (the festival of lights), a colourful and imaginative use of lights decorating the city. The festival has its roots in the celebration of Mary, who was the “saviour” of the town during an outbreak of the plague in 1643. The festival as it is now known came about after a planned celebration of the Immaculate Conception. Grand festivities had been planned as well as more localised celebrations as each individual illuminated the façade of their home. However, on the morning of the celebration, a large thunderstorm hit the town and the master of ceremonies decided to delay the event until the following weekend. The storm dispersed throughout the day and despite the official festival being delayed, the population of the town spontaneously lit up their houses and celebrated in the streets.

In the modern day, the event has grown to the 3rd largest festival in the world in terms of the number of people attending. Typically the event draws between 2-4 million people, placing it behind only Carnival in Rio and Oktoberfest in Munich. The tradition of illuminating candles in one’s windows still exists, but has been overshadowed by the massive installations which cover the city, prepared by artists from all around the world. The scale of the festival is the largest I have ever seen, and likewise the number of people attending meant that the crowds were also the largest I have ever seen. I had previously visited Lyon in January of 2013, and it was nice quiet city. This time was essentially the opposite. That is not to say the city does not handle it well; the public transport is altered in such a way as to make things run quite smoothly with such large crowds. For example, long lines outside the metro stations are set up and policed to ensure trains can load/unload efficiently. The trains were also split in two and ran at double frequency, which worked really well. The festival runs over the weekend, but on the day of the traditional celebration (the 8th) the public transportation is free. In terms of finding accommodation, we booked three months in advance and really struggled to find anything, and ended up staying in a nice hotel a little out of town as it was the only choice. So booking as far in advance as possible is most definitely a good idea.

We arrived on the Friday evening and left on the Sunday night, which meant we would have both Friday night and Saturday night to see the installations. I am in no way going to try and describe all of those that we saw, since there were just too many and I am not here to write an essay on the interpretation of installation art. However, if you are interested, a video of some of the highlights can be found here.

Whilst waiting at the station, I had some fun helping someone who could not speak French, but was in the area to meet a realtor and find an apartment. He asked if I could call him and find out where the apartment was. I called the realtor and explained what was happening and asked for directions from the station to the property. The realtor explained that the property was nowhere near the station and he would have to take the metro elsewhere first. I tried explaining this to the guy, but his English was not great, so I am not sure if he understood. In the end I just told him to go to the appropriate metro station and then do the same thing at get someone to help him again. I hope he managed to find his way!

We headed to our hotel which was in Rochecardon, which was at the end of the metro line (gare de vaise) with a 15 minute walk on the end. We had a bit of trouble finding it, as we were blindly following google maps, whose location for the hotel was incorrect. Long story short, we walked straight past our hotel and then had to retrace our steps. But after checking in, we dumped our stuff and headed back into the city to check out the installations.

Arriving at Place Bellecour, the place had just transformed since I was last there. There was a large Ferris wheel, massive crowds, sounds, lights and just general craziness. We had a program showing the location of all the pieces, so we made a rough plan and made our way through the town. Due to the volume of people, it was pretty slow going, but also moved in dribs and drabs. Many of the installations had a performance of sorts, which the crowd would watch, and then all disperse at once. It was certainly not a good place to be if you really do not like crowds. Many of the pieces used the buildings/surrounding really well, often animating the buildings, which given the detailed architecture was really quite impressive. One piece, which was observed from the riverbank looking up towards La Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière atop the hill, was quite noteworthy as it basically involved the entire city with a synchronised music and lights show.

Obviously when there are large crowds around, there are a lot of people there trying to make money from said crowds. The method of money extraction principally took the form of mulled wine and various food stalls. The quality was actually not so bad, nor were the prices – but the choices were somewhat limited. Since this is basically the only thing one can eat when they are inside the festival area, I hope you like kebabs.

Le Palais de Justice and La Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière — Le Palais de Justice and La Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière

After exploring a decent chunk of the town, we decided to head back to our accommodation at about 0130. The metro stopped at 0200, so we did not want to risk having a very long walk home in the cold. The crowds were not so bad, especially as we were going in the opposite direction to most people, so we had arrived home by around 0215 and being absolutely buggered, it did not take long to get to sleep.

One of the medieval streets in the town's centre

One of the benefits of staying in a nice hotel is having breakfast. It was good and there was plenty of it, which suited me nicely. Our plan for the day was to head out to a nearby medieval town called Pérouges, our reasoning being that a) we had already seen most of Lyon previously and b) with some millions of people in the city, getting out of the city would be a good idea. The town is 30 kilometres north-west and is serviced by a train from Lyon to Meximieux in 30 minutes, followed by a 15 minute walk. The town in not particularly famous, but its appeal comes from being an authentic twelfth century town. It has somehow avoided development and is only now starting to become popular because of this.

Situated atop a hill with a view over to the Alps and the surrounding fields, it is a really pretty spot. As you pass through the city walls, you quickly realise how small the town is, with a “road” that runs inside the perimeter, a central square and a few connecting pathways and that it is. We had not anticipated that, since it was December, there was going to be a Christmas market. It was however a welcome surprise, as the market was full of local arts and crafts, as well as produce, all of which were produced inside the city walls.

We wandered around the city, seeing the sights, which was a pretty small list, but the draw of a place like Pérouges is not a grand cathedral or similar, but rather the narrow streets and simply just the feeling that one gets from being in a medieval city. We tried the local galette au sucre which was pretty tasty, along with some really nice lightly spiced beer.

Once we were content with our exploration, we headed back to the station to return to Lyon and get straight into the installations. As we would be arriving on the other side of the city, we had planned an itinerary that would traverse the city and see the majority of the remaining exhibits. We started with one that can only be described as a lot of Chinese style lanterns in trees. In the middle of the Parc de la Tête d'Or, some thousands of them had been set up and it was a really great effect. Heading back into town, we went via La Place des terreaux which in some respects was the main event. The entire square came alive in a 10 minute display, which was astonishing. The detail, as well as the story it told – based on the Petit Prince – were excellent, and it was probably my favourite of the entire festival. Another notable mention was the already famous mural la fresque des lyonnais, which depicts the town’s most successful/famous/influential people, which came to life and each told their own story. It was really something.

After winding our way up to Croix-Rousse we had more or less seen everything, not to mention had worn ourselves out, so we headed home. Due to our location, we had to walk a decent chunk of the way home as well as get down off the hill, which was some fun navigating. It was probably around 0100 or 0130, and we crossed some youths climbing the hill, who jokingly called us weak for bailing early. It is not particularly pertinent to anything; I just remember it quite clearly.

Sunday was a much quieter day and since we had had a couple of late nights we were more than happy to have a bit of sleep in. After another round of delicious breakfast, we made our way into town and met up with some friends for a drink, which was great since the weather was really nice and siting out on the riverfront in a pretty nice thing to do under those circumstances. In the afternoon we entertained ourselves with a movie and then once that was done, the sun was beginning to set and the festival was starting to ramp up for the evening, but we were to return to our respective cities. So with some parting churros, we made our way to our trains and it was lights out for the festival.

Since my trip I have had people ask if the festival is worth both the hype and the pain. I would say yes on both accounts. Sure, there are loads of people and the price of things is slightly inflated, but it really is a special event. There were some pretty average installations, but seeing even one of the grand installations is more than enough to make up for the ones that maybe do not interest you. In summary, la fête des lumières will be a real highlight.

Adventures