Nîmes, the French Rome

We chose this city by chance for our afternoon and night rest while travelling through France. We had never been to Nîmes or heard much about the city, however, we were pleasantly surprised by the history that greeted us. After I met this cat, took a shower, and rested in the hotel room, we went for a walk around the city centre.

I wore sandals instead of sneakers because it was warm. After the information I saw in a magazine about this city that I took from the hotel, I found out that this city is called French Rome. And the Romans wore sandals, right? There, I fit the surroundings.

The first landmark we visited was one of those Roman buildings which is authentic and very well preserved. Les Arénes.

Wow, what thick stone walls, I couldn't believe that I was seeing before me this amphitheatre where gladiator fights were held two thousand years ago. Nowadays, shows and theatres are still held as well as bullfights.

Unfortunately, I don't understand much of this text written in French, but I read in English translation in the tourist magazine that this arena is one of the best preserved in the world. It was built in the 1st century AD.

I am not a huge fan of bullfights and even less of those gladiator fights where they had to fight for their lives in front of the audience... to entertain others...? But that was popular in those times, and according to a legend, Emperor Augustus visited the Arena of Nîmes to meet a famous gladiator.

Now, a toreador stands here in front of the amphitheatre.

I will leave this here and have just peaceful thoughts. I don't need to see the blood of other people or bulls to have fun, but seeing monuments is already better.

When travelling with another Hiver, it is always a challenge to be the first to take a photo of something...

You see! 😆

So, these I leave for him but there were plenty of other things to see in Nîmes. Monuments to heroes, fountains, squares, churches, narrow streets full of terraces, little shops and balconies.

I love cathedrals so we set in the navigation to find it in Nîmes. We found it but we had no luck to see its facade, it was under restoration works.

From here, we continued through the narrow streets. The restaurants were prepared to receive the customers for dinner.

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Our last stop was another Roman building, called La Maison Carrée. It is a Roman temple, supposed to be the best-preserved temple from the Roman times in the world! So happy that I could see this building in real, which was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2023.

The building has six columns on the front and ten on the sides - eight of them are integrated into the walls. I found it amazing but I don't know a lot about this type of architecture. Luckily, we can all read about it in different places, for example here.

Well, those who can read French can try to see the info from this board that can be found in front of the building. :)

After seeing this awesome piece of history we headed back to our accommodation. Just right before we reached the hotel, my left sandal broke. 😂 With a little engineering and improvisation I managed to walk in it until the hotel.

It was definitely an unforgettable visit to Nîmes because of this little detail and of course, because of the perfectly preserved buildings from the Roman times.