Personal travel impressions in stories and pictures from Christmas Lights, Swedish Christmas, Sweden. Click on the pictures to enlarge, send as a free e-card, or download for personal use. You can locate Christmas Lights and navigate the world using Google Earth
In Sweden, differences between summer and winter are literally like day and night. While in summer days are extremely long, and the sun nearly does not sleep, in winter it is the contrary. Days are very short, nights long and dark. Life goes on, hoewever, and the invention of electricity must have been of major importance for this part of the world.
Walking around in Göteborg on the western coast of the country, I saw lights in any form, everywhere. In houses, offices, shops and on a tall TV tower. But I spotted the most impressive display of light in trees. Many thousands of little lights had meticulously been sticked to the trunks and even the smallest branches, which gave the otherwise nude trees a fairy-tale look.
The fight for light can therefore lead to a beautiful show of light, which I would call art. Once again, I appreciated more than ever the intense delicateness and ingenuity of nature. By just following the lines of a tree, you can create art. I could almost wish that the leaves would never return. Thus, the creators of this light show have achieved their goal. Victory over winter, over darkness, over death. These trees seem very alive.
