16.1.11

Nevers, Ville des Lumières!

During the second week of December I went to Lyon with a friend for the Fête des Lumières, or Festival of Lights.  Every year the city of Lyon hosts the Fête des Lumières and people come from all over the world to see the city lit up for Christmas.  This year, Nevers did its own version of the Festival of Lights.  It was nothing like the original (which we saw the following weekend, and which you can see in a few posts!), but it was still a lot of fun! 

The rest of the girls were in Paris visiting Disneyland (a very cold excursion for them indeed), but Jess and I stayed in for a relaxing, blue-skied, snow-filled weekend of Christmas lights in what we've come to consider our hometown: Nevers. 

Nevers, charming and snow-laden
We started the day off with a vin chaud (hot spiced wine) and some live music. 
Old man dishing out our steaming cups of vin chaud--our first of the season!
The poor performers' hands looked SO cold, but towards the end of their performance a waiter from a nearby café came out to bring them each a cup of hot coffee. 

Sometimes service in France isn't that bad :) 
The day was full of performers; not only bands, but also various entertaining acts, like the Ice Queens on stilts accompanied by their not-so-talented Russian steel drum brethren, or the physical comedian trying to pitch a pop-up tent and failing miserably for 45 minutes.  

They were fun to watch, even though we had no idea what they were doing there...?
At one point he lost his pants...?  Entertaining indeed.
 Finally, once it was dark (and the comedian had re-pantsed himself), the mayor made a quick speech and pressed the button that lit up the whole city at once!  Some local high school students had engineered giant icicles to glow on cue, and they lit up Place de la Resistance really nicely.

Ooooh!  Ahhhh!  Pointy!!!
The rest of the city was similar: beautifully (or tackily) lit up, but bright and cheery and very efficient at getting us in the holiday spirit...even if we almost had a seizure at Place Carnot because of the flashing lights. 
The pedestrian street, all lit up for Christmas
Happy Holidays, says the Christmas hut!
Place Carnot.  You're lucky the internet spares you the frequency of the flashing....it's really painful.
Palais Ducal, regal under its blanket of snow and adoring spotlights


Though it's a bit late, I hope you all had happy holidays and that the holiday spirit kept you cheery through those short, dark days! 

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