nimes

lovely laid back nimes

25.10.2012 - 25.10.2012
View motorhome adventure on spiderface's travel map.

thursday: woke to a rather iffy day, weather wise.....white cloud : (
slow get up and go, but weather improving all the time....scooted into nimes, about 15 mins.
parked up by the roman amphitheatre, capacity 24,000, and the best preserved one in the roman
world....what a place, absolutely huge and in astounding condition too, listened to the really good
audioguide, which got right into the blood and guts of roman life!
stayed in there about 2 hours, + finished off with some bullfighting and gladiator fighting films...
they still use the arena for bullfighting, but all over now its october, nimes is bullfighting central in
france, + they are still permitted to kill the bulls here.
after that stopped for a lunch break in the park which we had seen from the top....sat in the
sunshine, with all the students, eating panini's and muffin's! yum.
then a slow amble through the old town to the square house 'maison carree' - an old roman temple,
and the castellum - the point of arrival of the 50km aquaduct from the eure spring, near uzes, via the
pont du gard.
you've got to hand it to those romans, they certainly knew what they were doing when it came to
building (and plumbing)!
another slow walk back through the old town, ice-cream in hand, past the massive old cathedral,
very sombre inside, before arriving back at the amphitheatre where the bike was parked....
took some more piccies of the arena, and a gorgeous matador statue in front of it; had seen lots of
bullfighting iconography all over the town....it really is a big thing here....then a quick ride home via
a bread shop to find another van parked up at 'our' aire!!
off tomorrow, as storms due, we're headed for montpellier, beziers and beyond....