Lumiere London January 2016

If you follow us on Instagram you may have seen a few pictures from the Lumiere London event that took place on the 14th to 17th of January.

It was a free festival that took place across London, running 6.30 - 10.30 each evening. Light installations and displays had been set up in 6 key areas of the city: Kings Cross, Mayfair, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square and Westminster.

We went along on the Saturday and as it was outside made it a family trip by bring Bisbee. We had prepped beforehand by checking out the website , printing off a map and deciding what was on our must see list. Knowing it was going to be busy we thought we would start at Kings Cross and make our way to Trafalgar Square hoping that the crowds would do the opposite.

At the start it seemed straight forward. At each installations there was a guide who could point you to the next piece and it was like following a trail. King's Cross is stunning without the event but seeing areas you normally walk past without a thought being lit up was something special.

At King's Cross we saw the bird cage lit up as a rainbow, eery dresses floating in windows and a join the dots thing on a wall but the highlight for me was the Circus of Light. A projection of dancing animals that brought Granary Square to life.

From King's Cross we caught the tube to Oxford Street. The tube was PACKED and they had issues getting people out so we were lucky to make it safely to our tube. We heard on our arrival at Oxford Circus that they had actually closed King's Crossed so we timed it perfectly!

Once out on Oxford Street we could see an enormous net that changed colour every couple of seconds. It was mesmerising and it was a good job they had stopped traffic as the area was full of people just staring up.

From there we headed to Mayfair. A 20 minute trek but a chance for Bisbee to really stretch her legs which she was glad of. On arrival we found out that they had closed the aquarium telephone box as people had been hitting the glass too hard - why are there always arseholes?! So we joined the queue to enter the park. While the brightness of brothers and sisters was inviting it was a board of light that caught our attention - mainly as it had benches by it. Mayfair certainly hadn't lit us up!

Heading back towards Piccadilly and it was clear where the installations were as groups of people were gathered with phones to the sky. The beautiful proverb 'for the beloved one longs most' was illuminated above the Piccadilly arcade. Next were the keyframes (men) hanging off a near by building with the lights making it look like they were running up and down the building - very effective!

We had been looking forward to the Travellers - expecting them to be large and flying through the sky - in reality they were small and stuck to buildings - beautiful though. The most impressive thing for us was the fish like things suspended over Regents Street. With hypnotic music playing and their gentle sway it was really relaxing to just stand and watch as the chaos of the crowd walked by.









The only thing that snapped us out of it was the noise of what sounded like an elephant - it was in fact an animation of an elephant swinging his truck and stomping his hoofs. The night was full of surprises! Stopping had been a faux pas on our side though as it gave us a change to realise that the 4 hours of walking had left us in a bit of pain.

We were determined to make it to Leicester Square and were happy to be greeted by the Garden of Light - so, so pretty and the detail made it feel alive. Bisbee even found a quiet spot to admire the beauty! Summoning strength we walked the short distance to Trafalgar Square to see the fountains lit up with plastic bottles full of colour and the Centre Points lights. It was our final stop that left us smiling though the Neon Dogs that were hanging out in shop front were stunning.

We didn't quite make it to Westminster but heard the Abbey was beautiful. On hearing our tube stop had been closed due to over crowding we just couldn't face the extra walk. Instead it was Chipotle and a quick (well as quick as could be) march to the next tube station where we managed to get a tube back to our friends house pick up the car and drive the 2 hours back to Birmingham!

Bisbee was asleep within seconds, as the driver I however was wide awake and ready to battle the snow that had started to fall.

London is exhausting! The night was well worth it though!