So that was the Festival of Lights!
Last year we visited the Festival of Lights in Berlin, where we saw a number of landmarks or buildings in Berlin lit up with light display shows. This year we did it again - and while I seemingly may not have made a post about this last year, I've decided I will for this year. Some of the displays are static, others are a revolving show complete with music. The Brandenburg Gate is always one of the latter - usually lots of little clip shows making use of the structure all edited together to create one looping, seamless show. Personally I liked last years show better - and the bit with the emoticon faces tumbling into each pillar and then spilling along the top while inventive, wasn't really interesting. This is the German Office of Finance, which is why it has pictures of Euro Coins on it. This building had static pictures on it - rotating between this one, and one with all the flags of the EU nations on the left and the EU flag on the right. It wasn't the most spectacular show but what is interesting about this building is its one of the two remaining examples of Nazitechture in Berlin - this was the former Luftwaffe (Air Force) Headquarters, which wasn't destroyed in WW2, fell (just!) into East Berlin (literally the Berlin Wall ran alongside one side of this building, and part of it still remains) and became the East German "House of Ministries". Now its the Finance and Tax headquarters! By the way its a huge building, taking up almost the entire city block. Gendarmenmarkt was a show of moving blue clouds again, much like last year - could even have been the same show! The Humboldt University was another static show, but particularly more colourful than last years one! St Hedwig's Cathedral was under scaffolding last year, but this year had a very bright and vibrant static show on it. Next door, the Titanic Hotel had a few static but rotating pictures - the lady from one of these pictures can be seen at right. Last year, the Titanic hotel had a moving dynamic show so the static "slides" was a bit different. The general scene outside the Humboldt University, with the State Opera house to the left, St Hedwig's Cathedral, the Titanic Hotel and then the Humboldt University. The Berliner Dom had various different shows on it - they were all different competitive shows from people around the world, and you could vote for which one you thought was the best. It was quite neat to see the Dom lit up in wildly different colours than any Church/Cathedral ever normally would be in! ,The Nikolaiverteil, the oldest part of the city (not necessarily in architecture thanks to WW2, but where the city first started!) also joined in the party this year - with the church there having a scrolling show showing and naming different cities that Berlin was sister-cities of or affiliated with. Last, but not least, the iconic Berlin TV tower was lit up for show again this year. I much preferred it this year - not because you could actually see the "ball" of the tower this year (it was hidden in cloud the night we went last year) but because the show was quite interesting. It had two parts - showing people who had gone to a booth earlier in the day to have their body "3D Scanned" and then displayed on the shaft of the tower, where they were then "beamed up". The other part showed different planets and and then a spaceship zooming around a blue solar system, as it was a subtle advertisment for the new Star Trek Discovery TV show (have seen a few episodes since, its not particularly notable in my opinion).
So that was the Festival of Lights!
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A Kiwi out travelling in the UK and surrounding countries Archives
August 2019
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