When darkness asserts itself, they come on—at first, a faint pink glow. At midnight, they go out leaving the town blanketed in pitch-blackness.

Inside these rustic houses are high-speed internet connections. But outside there are streetlights reminiscent of a long time ago. If it weren’t for their long-life bulbs (standard in Europe), you could imagine them containing flickering gas flames. I look at them and remember a poem my mother read me when I was a child:

The Lamplighter

My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky.
It’s time to take the window to see Leerie going by;
For every night at teatime and before you take your seat,
With lantern and with ladder he comes posting up the street.

Now Tom would be a driver and Maria go to sea,
And my papa’s a banker and as rich as he can be;
But I, when I am stronger and can choose what I’m to do,
O Leerie, I’ll go round at night and light the lamps with you!

For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door,
And Leerie stops to light it as he lights so many more;
And oh! before you hurry by with ladder and with light;
O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him to-night!

—Robert Louis Stevenson