Floralia (3)

Underneath the silver-lined sheet of darkness were festival lanterns, weeping above us like a sea of descending stars. Signs of Floralia celebrations were everywhere. Music floated out of stores and shops where the doors had been flung open, and men and women reveled to their hearts' content. Acrobats dangled from cords over the canal, lithe bodies glazed in little scraps of silk and glitter, while street performers played their instruments, hoping to garner a coin of two from passerby.

As we walked around, I saw a number of stalls that created elaborate displays of pepper cookies baked in the shape of the empire's worshipped flowers, some hanging like ornaments from large, twisting trees, and the bridge spanning the river gorge had been festooned with ribbons and Helianthian banners of red.