Lyon Fête des Lumières 2010

Right now I'm in Lyon enjoying the Fête des Lumières (Lights Festival). Don't ask me how I managed to wrangle 2 nights for free in an apartment in the heart of the city right during one of its busiest period for accommodation... it's my lucky day/week/month! However, it seems I won't be getting any sleep tonight... It's almost midnight and there is a big band playing downstairs on the street... Everybody is in such a festive mood!

Boy on boy was it cold. It was a pretty much cloudless day and those days are always colder than cloudy days. I am surprised I managed to stay out for over 4 hours in -2°C temperature ! Incredible. At times I didn't think I could last but everyone else did, even the little kids and old people so I pushed on although I did give up queuing up for the Jungle one. I might see it tomorrow... It looked good but I really did not want to stand for ages in a queue! (I hate queues).

I'd been looking forward to this even for a year (well since the last one) so I had very high expectations and I was a little disappointed. I'm not sure why exactly. Maybe the massive crowds has something to do with it. I enjoyed the lights festival in May/June in Sydney and it was hardly crowded at all! As well as that it went on for much longer than just 4 days. I guess the crowds and the mega cold was a dampener for me but there were some nice things to see.  My fave (of those that I saw) was the one in Place des Terreaux. The combination of the lights, the sound/music and the water was just amazing!

All the restaurants were open and many had little stands selling fast and cheap snack type food, and vin chaud ((hot) mulled wine). I didn't try any though because I wanted to bring the bare essentials so I didn't even bring my wallet or a handbag! I didn't want to get pickpocketed amongst the crowds. Although I shouldn't have worried because it felt really really safe. There were stacks of police everywhere and everyone was well behaved. I kept thinking to myself if this was in Australia and it was late at night and a Friday night at that and almost Christmas there would surely be many loud, annoying drunk people about but I didn't see any of these... just annoying smokers everywhere :P

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17 December: added photo