This year’s edition of the light festival opened a few days ago, and I took these photos of one beautiful entry during my bike ride to the office the prior week, as the various light sculptures were being installed. Eager to see the rest as soon as I can get out for a cruise :-).
I’ve stuck with just Norway posts since last Wednesday, so now I’m back in A’dam as of this morning I figured I’d reiterate my love of this city on a clear morning, circa two weeks ago on a morning bike commute to the office.
I’ve decided to begin the new year with a first entry celebrating light in the darkness of winter. And to use up just about every remaining 2024 photo that could fit into this category all in one go, thus beginning what readers have termed my annual mad rush to empty my folders of last year’s photo before I take a blog break and then resume. Among the things you’ll see if you look for them in the gallery below are (light) pears in trees on Dam Square in the heart of the city; quite a few images from this year’s light festival (which include many showing a series called “moon rise,” as well as the one saying “closed until canals freeze over:” that’s art!); a view down one of the famous canal intersections in which you can see the arches of nine different bridges all lit up as that canal travels southward under other street bridges; and two specific photos looking out from my apartment, one of which shows a building lit as a Christmas Tree and another showing the early-morning deliver early last month of a truck bringing some absolutely massive construction equipment for the new high-rise apartment complex they’re building across the street from me. (Over my morning tea, I watched the drivers and lead trucks sort out how navigate the super long truck around the traffic circle below us, including at one point taking out and then putting back a road traffic sign. And lots of other impatient cars turning and around going back the wrong way, which they could get away with b/c of how early it was.)
Last day of my third full year based here in Amsterdam, a city in which I’m now always happy to “come home.” It celebrates its 750th anniversary next year, with that light shining up into the sky originating from that first settlement. There’ll be anniversary celebration events all year, which you can check out if you’re planning or thinking about visiting the city. I’ll share a few shots of a recent sunrise over Sloterplas (where I live), to wrap up this year in ‘city views’ from home. 🙂
Amsterdam’s annual winter light festival along the canals opened last week, so I’ve begun seeing them on my evening and morning bike commutes. We’ve shared many festival sculptures with you in the past. (If you view full version, select the label “winter lights” which you ‘ll see below in this post itself, and many will be from this lights festival.) I’ll be interested if any of the light sculptures this year will surpass what my favorite from the three years I’ve so far been enjoying this festival :-).
(so much world, so little time....) 