Date: September 8th, 2012
WARNING: THE VIDEO CLIPS CONTAIN FLASHING IMAGES AND LOUD NOISE!
Every year, on the second Saturday of September, the biggest fireworks show takes place in Paris, Le Grand Feu de Saint-Cloud. I love fireworks, but this is the first year when I am organized enough to get us some tickets. Not organized enough for tickets to the tribune, those are all sold out by the time I get around to trying to buy some. But I do manage to get 3 tickets for the grass, so off we go to Domaine de Saint-Cloud, the large park where the fireworks are held.
Twenty-three thousand people are expected to attend, so we go early to get a good spot. Even though we get there one hour before the show starts, the grass is already almost completely full. We do find a decent spot though (people who come later will have to do with very little space), and unpack our picnic. There is part of me that is happy about not being on the tribune. Picnicking on the grass is the real way of seeing fireworks, isn't it?
The show is going to last 1 hour and 50 minutes and I am not sure how exactly I feel about almost two hours of loud banging and flashing lights. Two hours? How on earth are they going to do it? Well, my question is answered right away: the first half hour is spent by explanations and demonstrations of various types of fireworks. Not what I expected, but OK. The rest of the time is the actual show, pieced together from shorter segments, some with music, some without. It's amazing. The sheer magnitude of it is overwhelming. There are some classic fireworks and some more bizarre ones (among the latter my favorite are the "buzzing snakes" - that's just how I call them, you can see in one of the clips below what I mean).
Nothing more to say really, in this case (moving) pictures are really worth a thousand words. I posted a small sample of video footage from the show. Make sure your sound is turned on, most of the clips have music - and enjoy!
How do you get tickets if you are stateside?
ReplyDeleteYou can get them here: http://www.fnactickets.com/place-spectacle/manifestation/Feux-d-artifice-LE-GRAND-FEU-FEU13.htm. Unfortunately they don't have printable e-tickets. On the French version of the website it says that they send tickets abroad, but I don't see that on the English version, so I am not sure. Alternately you can pick up the tickets in one of the Fnac stores (e.g. on Champs Elysees), but not sure how many days in advance you need to pick them up.
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