La Nuit Blanche (White Night) in Paris 2014

We went out to an all-night art festival last Saturday night. It's called La Nuit Blanche (White Night) because it stays open all night. We were out around midnight and the lines stretched around the block, even though it was raining and cold. It was kind of cool to see so many people excited about it.

Our first stop was Gare d'Austerlitz. It was cool and windy outside, and threatening to rain at any minute. After a half-hour wait in a long line that moved quickly, we made it inside the Austerlitz train station. Spanish artist Pablo Valbuena had taken over platform 7 as a canvas for one of his famous lighting events. So, there was a train platform, indoors, over a quarter of a mile long, with no tracks yet.

 
The videos below are only 30 seconds or so - not a big investment of time...and definitely worth it! The best way to watch these is to click the Youtube link in the lower right of the video here. Once you're in youtube, click the change quality to max HD, and click the maximize icon also in the lower right corner. This will give you a nice full-screen high-def view. 

 
First quick video...

The big one... the loud clicking noises you're hearing are from the light switches as they go on and off.

The exit was on the other end of the tracks, so once we walked down that way, we turned around and saw it from the opposite perspective.  Maybe even better this way!  

Below is a link to some of the other art we tried to see, but got impatient with the huge lines... the one with the guy drawing labyrinths with salt was my next choice.  But, the line at the Hotel De Ville was unbelievable, and it was already midnight.  Some of the other attractions are more long-term, so I hope we get to see some of them.

http://www.timeout.com/paris/en/art/nuit-blanche-artworks

For a different type of Parisian light show, check out the July 14th fireworks at the Eiffel Tower.

And now, a year later, I have photos from La Nuit Blanche Paris 2015.

Dawn at the Bay of Pollenca, Mallorca

This post is mostly photos of the Bay of Pollenca taken at dawn.  But, before we go to the dawn photos, here's a panorama taken from the highest point in the area.  the view was always changing with the sun and the clouds.  It only took about twenty minutes to drive to from our hotel, so we went to the top several times.

[Previous posts on Mallorca:  fire-fighting seaplane, cliffs with sea views,  and Cala San Vicenzo.]

Our room faced the lovely Bay of Pollenca, which is surrounded by dry, scrubby hills.  The first morning in our hotel room, I was awakened by an orange glow coming through a gap in the curtains.  That inspired me to get up early and go down to the beach before 6AM the next two mornings in a row.  It's so, hard to get up that early, if it's to do something you don't want to do, but it wasn't so bad in this case.  This photo is long before the sunrise.  The lighthouse  at the tip of the peninsula was still lit.

The sun is getting brighter here.  I stayed almost two hours.  In all that time, I only saw about ten people, and that was only after I'd been there over an hour.

Later, a man came out to do Tai-Chi at the end of a pier.  It was like the whole bay and sky were his workout room.  The lighting is a little confusing here.  The sun is up, but it's muted by clouds in the foreground, while reflecting off the higher clouds further away.

  

This is the pier where a teenage boy had come out to fish.  He had the place to himself.  The sun is just going behind the clouds in this one.

I like the reflections on the silvery water and the glowing clouds in this one.  

Au revoir, Mallorca!