Presentation

The festival of lights takes place every year in Lyon for December 8th, the city is dressed in its finest clothes of lights to offer us a spectacular show.

The tradition want that every family in Lyon keeps its lumignons (set of thick glasses and occasionally colorful, garnished with candles) and the evening of December 8, the candles are lit and placed in glass deposited on the side windows. Since the 90s, the festival was accompanied by spontaneous activities offered by the municipality and created by designers of national and international renown. The Festival of Lights now runs in every districts throughout the city offering a surpenants show of lights.

History

It was in 1643, during a plague epidemic, that the city of Lyon was placed under the protection of the Virgin: the leaders, aldermens and the provost of the merchants then made a vow to honor the Virgin each year if the plague ceased. Since then, a solemn procession goes annually to the Notre-Dame de Fourviere from the Cathedral of St. John, on September 8th, day of consecration of the city to the Virgin.

In 1852, a statue of the Virgin Mary erected on the Chapel Hill of Fourviere should have been inaugurated on September 8, but a flood of Saône prevented the ceremony taking place. It's the 8th December, day of the feast of the Immaculate Conception, that the inauguration was postponed and it was then that the people of Lyon, in a spontaneous gesture, lit for the first time their windows the night of the 8th December.