
Christmas is coming closer, so what better way to celebrate the start of the holiday season than with a light festival? Montpellier yearly organises Le Cœur de Ville en Lumières. During this festival, the most spectacular projected animations will literally illuminate the heart of the city as they are projected on the most well-known monuments in Montpellier. For free! So, keep your eyes and ears open and immerse yourself in this otherworldly spectacle.
Planning
Cœur de Ville en Lumières is the start of Montpellier’s end-of-the-year festivities. This year, the city organised the light festival from Thursday November 14 to Saturday November 16, from 18h30 to 22h30. Eleven monuments and heritage sites, five scenographers and 200 students from various Montpellier art schools participated in the 2024 edition, and I wanted to see them all in one evening. This required some planning. Therefore, I first downloaded the map from the official festival website, which you can find here.

Getting there
As I don’t live in Montpellier, I came by train. From Béziers, this is easy to do with a direct connection to the central train station Gare Saint-Roch. You can also come by car, but keep in mind that many roads and car parks will be closed during the festival. Although, I have been lucky in previous editions to find a spot in the car park behind the Promenade du Peyrou. This happened to be a very strategic starting point, with one of the participating monuments- the renowned water tower- a few steps from the car park.

Magical worlds
During the three evenings of Cœur de Ville en Lumières, the city of Montpellier will welcome over 400,000 visitors, so you won’t be alone. Expect a lot of people, meaning you might not be able to see all participating venues in one evening. From 18h30 to 22h30, you’ll be drawn into eleven magical worlds glowing on each of the monuments. Each light show takes about three to twelve minutes, followed by a seven-minute break. Students from the various art schools in Montpellier and surrounding towns created the striking animations. Light projections and 2D and 3D imaginary worlds perfectly melt together with some great tunes and transform the historic buildings into true pieces of art.

Awestruck
This year’s theme was ‘Montpellier, its history and its relationship with the world’. I have to say that the beauty of the animations and the accompanying music left me completely awestruck. It was absolutely amazing to see how they brought the buildings to life covering subjects such as the Olympic Games, Peace, Science and Medicine. Of course, I did take some pictures, but this is something you really have to experience for yourself. In the end, I managed to see all eleven participating monuments. However, I think this is a lot for one evening, as I hardly took a break. The printed map I brought with me wasn’t really necessary- just follow the crowd.
