Lyon, Fêtes des Lumières 2014

Festival of Lights

The Lyon Festival of Lights has its origins back in 1643 when Lyon was struck by the bubonic plague. Everyone lit a candle and placed it on the windowsill. This later evolved into an annual tradition on the 8^th of December and has progressed to a four day festival that attracts four million visitors annually.

Lyon is the third largest city in France, situated at the confluence of the Rhône and Saône Rivers about 290 miles south of Paris. Since it is only a 2 hour high speed train ride, Jessica, Erica and I decided to make it a day trip.

We had three reasons to go to Lyon:

1. For the Festival
2. For the Lumière Museum
3. For the food

First, the food:  Some consider Lyon to be the food capital of the world. Certainly, it is the culinary capital of France. So we made sure that we were hungry when we got off the train early afternoon. But, according to Alexander Lobrano, author of Hungry for France, skip the starred Michelin restaurants and head for a simple bouchon where the locals eat. 

Bouchon, the French word for cork, is the name given to the simple, hole-in-the-wall places that serve hearty, "head-to-tail" Lyonnais soul food. A bouchon recommended by Lobrano was also featured on Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown show. So that is where we headed: Café Comptoir Abel. We were not disappointed.

Poulet aux morilles à la crème

Bresse chicken

cream sauce

Morel mushrooms

Saucisson lentilles

Sausage with lentils

Quenelles de brochette

fluffy bone pike dumplings

(sophisticated version of Gefilte fish)

Our next visit was to the Lumière Museum. The Lumière brothers were brilliant inventors and shrewd businessmen. Along with Thomas Edison's role in developing the cinema, and George Eastman of Kodak fame, all these men were quite busy with their respective contributions to the film and cinema industries in the last decade of the 19^th century.

The Lumière brothers, Louis and Auguste, were raised in Lyon. Their father, who ran a small portrait painting and photography studio, challenged his sons to develop a better film. Louis succeeded, creating the first dry film plate with silver bromide emulsion. When their father retired in 1892, they took over the business. It was at that point that the business expanded and cinematography projection was born.

Today, the museum displays some of the brothers' many inventions and devices, and numerous old movies are available for viewing. The museum is housed in the original art nouveau style Lumière mansion in Lyon.

musée Lumière

The Festival

As night began to fall, we left the museum and took the métro back to the center of town. There were 75 separate light shows scattered throughout the old-town and surrounding sections of Lyon.

For a You Tube synopsis of the 2013 festival, please check out this link and check out this detailed description.

This is an example of the many shows to be seen each night of the festival, this particular one at the Place des Terreaux.

Here are some of the photos and videos I took. (The videos are invisible on most phones and pads.)

Saône River reflections

We left Lyon on the 9:00 pm train. We were in our beds 300 miles away in Paris before midnight, thanks to the superb public transportation in Lyon, Paris, and in between.

parting shot from the train station