All About The Festival of Lights in Lyon, France

Each year in December, a special festival takes place in the French city of Lyon – the Fête des Lumières. Or Festival of Lights, if you’re like me and your French isn’t up to speed. (Unfortunately, a week of half-hearted Duolingo wasn’t as helpful as I’d hoped.)

Fortunately, one of the puentes – 4-day weekends – in Spain coincided with the festival this year. Which also happened to be the same time that Hanna was visiting me! And since it’d been 8ish years since my last trip to France, and because the two of us make really good travel companions, we decided to attend the festival.

I really can’t say enough good things about it. Though I only had a general idea of what to expect, in reality everything was even better than I imagined. The city of Lyon orchestrated the event very well, and the city’s charm and Christmas spirit was amplified through the festival. Highly, highly recommend if you find yourself in Europe during early December.

Plan Ahead!

If you decide you do want to attend the Fête, you definitely need to plan ahead. Last year, I considered going. But as I looked at plane tickets in October and November, flight prices between Madrid and Lyon had increased to a point that I wasn’t willing to pay. Like hundreds of dollars. Even a 15-hour train ride was expensive. (Not to mention, would have been less than ideal.)

This year, Hanna and I booked our plane tickets with TAP Air Portugal and Iberia in AUGUST! Flights were much more affordable when booking farther in advance. We also booked our Airbnb during the first week of September. It was a bit “outside” Lyon in Villeurbanne, but it had good public transport options and was much quieter than it would have been to sleep in the city center.

One of Hanna’s friends who studied abroad in Lyon told her that he couldn’t believe we were able to find a place to stay during the festival. So it pays to plan ahead! Next year’s Festival of Lights will likely be held December 5-8. We loved the place we stayed in with Marie-Hélène, along with her cuddly pup Giulia and Noisette the cat. She was super sweet with a beautiful apartment and even made us breakfast every morning!

Festival History

I originally thought the Festival of Lights was just a fun way to celebrate Christmas. But it turns out, Lyon has a special reason why they celebrate. Hanna and I learned this when we ventured inside one of Lyon’s many cathedrals during the festival.

The story starts in the year 1643, when the plague was rampant throughout France and many parts of Europe. The people of Lyon prayed to the Virgin Mary, asking her to spare them and promising to pay her tribute with a statue. In the end, Lyon was not affected by the plague.

More than 200 years later, in 1852, a golden statue of Mary was erected next to the basilica at the top of Fourvière Hill, overlooking the city.  Inauguration was planned for December 8 – the Feast of the Immaculate Conception – but an impending storm canceled the festivities. The citizens of Lyon spontaneously placed candles in their windows as a tribute. And ever since then, Lyon has honored Mary in a similar way. Starting in 1989, the Fête des Lumières began to evolve into what it is today.

The Good Stuff

Okay, now you know the history. So let’s talk about the good stuff!

Logistics

This year, the Festival of Lights took place from Thursday, Dec. 5 to Sunday, Dec. 8. On Friday and Saturday night, the hours were from 8 p.m.-midnight, and on Thursday and Sunday the hours were 7-11 p.m. There are more than 30 light displays throughout the city, most of which are easy to walk to, although there are a few located outside the city center.

More than 2 million visitors attend the Fête each year. Interestingly, we rarely heard any English spoken, or even any other languages besides French. We thought most of the visitors must have come from elsewhere in France.

It’s good to start with a map of the festival, although apparently there’s also an app which we didn’t find out about until too late. All the sites are marked on the map, along with suggested routes and their distances. On the first night, Hanna and I did the pink and orange routes; the second night, we did the blue.

Security

Apparently, the Festival of Lights was canceled in 2015 due to security concerns after the terrorist attack at the Bataclan the previous month. Since then, the Fête has been on a smaller scale than in previous years. But I felt very safe at all points during my time at the festival.

The area of the festival – designated in green in the map above – was blocked off from cars and was for pedestrians only. There were certain streets that were only for traffic flowing in one direction, and other areas blocked off altogether. There were random bag checks by police that were required to move into certain areas. And we saw plenty of security guards and police throughout, along with ambulances and medical personnel. Information was readily available, and it was always relatively easy to find someone to ask a question to – though whether they could speak English was a different story. 😉

Displays

Now the really fun stuff!!! Each of the displays was something different – from strange interactive robots inside glowing bubbles, to stories illuminated on the sides of cathedrals, to lights in/on the river. Some of them were videos with a designated beginning and end, some of which were so good that we wanted to stay and watch it a second time. And others were more stagnant displays that we could wander up and view at will.

Each of the displays is designed or produced by a certain partner or sponsor. My favorite one by far was at the Places de Terreaux, Une toute petite histoire de lumière. My other favorites were Genesis at Cathédrale Saint-Jean-Baptiste and Lightning Cloud at Place des Célestins.

Even though on the second night, particularly, we intended to leave the festival a bit early after several nights of staying up until 2 a.m., we ended up staying the entire time until midnight or later. There’s really so much to see!

Joie de Noël

Sometimes French people get a reputation for being less-than-welcoming to tourists, but everyone we came across was super friendly! (Actually, people kept coming up to me and Hanna and asking us things in French… which was funny because I feel like we looked like the least French people ever? Especially because we were wearing matching red berets.)

Besides the super cute Christmas markets at Place Carnot and La Croix Rousse, we were pleasantly surprised to see all the people who’d set up makeshift food and drink stands throughout the streets of the festival. Seriously, every 10-15 feet was a group of people – from adults to teenagers – selling Vin Chaud (mulled wine), hot chocolate, and even soup or snacks. They were like lemonade stands! It was so much fun to walk around in the cold, looking at the beautiful light displays, with a warm drink. The number of vin chauds each of us consumed over those few days was definitely higher than 10… but at €1.50-€2.50 a glass, why not?!

Hanna and I had SUCH a great time, so I really really encourage you to check out this festival someday if you’re able to! Lyon is also a beautiful city in its own right, so we had plenty to do every day as we waited for the sun to go down and the show to start. But that’s a post for another day. 🙂

 

Have you ever been to the Fête des Lumières or something similar? Or do you want to go? Let me know in the comments!

-Cathy

Originally Published on December 20, 2019.