Travel marché de noël, strasbourg 11:42 pm
No time to do a real recap of my Strasbourg trip, but….. Joyeuses fêtes à tous! I leave you with a little Christmassy photo 
I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas; I don’t think I’ll be posting again until the New Year.
"Christchild Market"
(So named in reaction to the Catholic tendency to attach saints to everything.)
Daily life chemistry, lab 12:10 am
It’s been hovering around 0 C lately, which means…. SNOW!
Taking "store in a cool place" to a new level
Lyon fête des lumières 6:52 pm
I'm a pretty waterfall.
So I headed out on the second night with the intention of walking up to the basilica on Fourvière and snapping as many pictures as I could. Which I kind of did. Here are the best:
Basilica of Fourvière
On the left you can see the statue of the Virgin Mary which was basically the element déclencheur of the whole Fête des Lumières. At least, I think that’s what it is. It’s mounted quite high, actually, so you can’t see it that well…
A little bit closer
You could almost say... gong show. But not.
They were projecting lights on the facade of the basilica, accompanied by the bells, which was pretty neat, actually: I heard strains of Carmen as I walked up to the hill. The pictures don’t really do it justice… you had to be there, in other words.
Lyon fête des lumières 10:58 am
One of the plazas had a plant theme going on. This was probably one of my favourite display.
Echinodermus luminis
Ombrellum
Place Bellecour was home to a giant Ferris wheel which served as a screen for the display “la nuit au musée” (Night at the Museum). Works from Lyon’s Museum of Fine Arts were pictured, interspersed with random quotes (like this one: “Tout l’océan du grand Neptune arrivera-t-il à laver ce sang de ma main ?” Yup, from the Scottish play.)
Zeus, I think? Or maybe Poseidon.
There’s also a statue of Louis XIV in Bellecour.
The Sun King... at night
In the 7e arrondisement there was an interesting display with plastic mannequins which lit up and played recordings when you approached them…. I couldn’t get a decent photo of them, so here are some lanterns instead 
More low-key lanterns
But the biggest surprise was wandering around Vieux Lyon on the last night of the festival and running into this random puppet show. It ended with “Vive la crise!” and the puppets chucking foil-wrapped chocolate coins onto their adoring public below.
Pour Guignol, la crise n'est rien
Lyon fête des lumières 6:55 am
So every year, since 1852, Lyon has had a Fête des Lumières (Festival of Lights) in early December. The story behind it, as I understand it, goes something like this:
On December 8, 1852, the town had planned to inaugurate a statue of the Virgin Mary on Fourvière Hill. Unfortunately, the weather was not cooperating, and the celebrations were duly cancelled. However, the townspeople had already placed candles in their windows for the event and were kind of getting ready to celebrate anyway. At the last minute, the skies cleared up, and the celebration went ahead, spurred on by the people taking to the streets spontaneously—and so every year since then, the Lyonnais commemorate the occasion by lighting up the whole city.
This year the Festival ran from December 5 to 8…. and I didn’t even get to see everything I wanted to! It’s a huge thing here.
These photos are a bit fuzzy, but I hope they give you an idea of just how beautiful this city is when it’s lit up.
PRETTY!
PRETTIER!
PRETTIEST!
With more to come
