Each year in December, a special festival takes place in the French city of Lyon — the Fête des Lumières. Or Festival of Lights, if you’re like me and your French isn’t up to speed. (Unfortunately, a week of half-hearted Duolingo wasn’t as helpful as I’d hoped.)

Fortunately, one of the puentes — 4-day weekends — in Spain coincided with the festival during my second year in Madrid, 2019. Which also happened to be the same time that my best friend Hanna was visiting me! And since it’d been 8ish years since my last trip to France, and because the two of us make really good travel companions, we decided to attend the festival. [Read more…]