French Cathedral Light Shows

Reim Cathedral Light Show (Photo: Reims Cathedral)

As if the Gothic cathedrals of France were not beautiful enough already, several have been illuminated this year in dramatic and vivid colors.  These shows will continue for the last few weeks of Dec 2011 if you are fortunate to be in France.

Angel from Reim Cathedral facade colorized and illuminated in a light show (Photo: Reims Cathedral)

The Reims Cathedral celebrated its 800th anniversary this year.  It’s light show elegantly chronicles this history illustrating the cathedral as if an illuminated manuscript, a geometric architectural plan, under construction and finally completed with painted facade statues.  The cathedral is also illuminated as if one huge stained glass window and then spends several minutes flashing between a range of Monet-esque abstracted palettes.  The Reims cathedral light show continues until Dec 31st.  A fairly good video of the 25min show is available in two parts online:

The Amiens Cathedral is also illuminated through December in a similar fashion.  There is no flashy show but you do have the chance to visualize the originally painted facade of the cathedral.  Like Reims, the image projection and matching is incredible, although you can see some of the shadows in the close-up image below.

Amiens Cathedral light show - detail of kings (Photo: Amiens Cathedral)