Up this morning about 7:30 am to quite a foggy day, although with the promise of sunshine a bit later. Bathed and out about 9 and headed over to Café Napoleon for coffee, hot chocolate and pastries before our walk to the Jardins de la Fontaine. It turns out that the first inhabitants of Nimes settled in the 6th Century BC near what they considered a sacred spring. In the 1st Century BC, the Romans set in it the Augusteum, a vast sanctuary dedicated to the god Nemausus (from whence Nimes got its name) and the emperor Augustus. This monumental set of buildings was rediscovered in the 18th century and a magnificent formal garden was designed around it that respected the layout of the archaeological remains. Today, the water from the original spring still fills fountains throughout the city, and there are some lovely canals and channels that wend their way through the north part of town. I’m sure that it is absolutely beautiful in the summer, with all the plantings and trees. In fact, one part of the gardens is filled with sculpture from a 17th century mansion that was being dismantled near Montpellier and subsequently moved to the gardens in Nimes. All in all, a beautiful setting, even on a very cold morning!
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| Part of the sacred spring! |
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| In the Jardin with beautiful sculpture |
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| Temple of Diana |
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| These are some very old stones! |
The Temple of Diana, from the 1st Century BC, was part of the Augusteum. It has an immense portico, a small theatre and a nymphaeum, although its purpose is not clear and the origin of the name is unknown (nothing really points to Diana, but she was a very popular Roman Goddess).
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| Entering in the Arena di Nimes |
From the temple, we decided to head to the Arena, as the sun was actually starting to come out! It was about a 10-12 minute walk – but the nice thing is, that the Arena is SO big that you can see it from quite a distance around; definitely made it easy to locate! They are doing quite a bit of reconstruction on it – obviously, this is the off-season, so the gladiator’s dressing rooms were off limits (which was fine with me!) but we were able to enter into the arena and climb up into the seats. I climbed up to the highest seats (for the poorest class of people…) to get a better view … turns out, there are four distinct levels, and the lower you sat, the higher your class! As it had been foggy earlier, everything was still pretty damp, but the seating was interesting. Each area was distinct unto itself, with its own steps leading in and out – apparently that was to prevent any problems entering and exiting the arena during events; preventing the classes from mixing, I’d guess! We chose not to walk along the sandy floor, but there were people who were, but there weren’t too many people visiting today, which was nice.
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| Looking out over one of the top layers |
After the arena, we directed our steps to the Musee des Beaux Arts, which wasn’t too far away. An interesting building, with a stunning atrium entrance with a beautiful mosaic flooring – filled with lots and lots of flat art work, and a few other interesting pieces. As those of you who know us well, we’re really not “flat” art fans … Philistines that we are, we do really prefer sculpture, and while there were a few nice pieces – and a really beautiful Della Robbia – for the most part, the art was very religious, and either French or what was called “Nordic” – which really turned out to be mostly German or Flemish in origin. We did find one interesting wooden sculpture of Saint Sebastian (as Robert calls him, the patron saint of porcupines or archers!) but we did have the place to ourselves, which was pleasant.
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| She looked very cold to me... |
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| Stunning Roman mosaic floor in the atrium |
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| Amazing 3-way clock! |
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| Saint Sebastian minus arrows! |
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| Beautiful Della Robbia crest |
From there, as it was late lunchtime, we decided to head back to La Reserve, and do lunch! The restaurant was much less crowded that it was the other day (as was the Café Napoleon this morning! Why is Tuesday such a popular day for eating out, and not Thursday, we ask ourselves?)
This time, while I ordered my Italian salad (figuring that it was probably my last opportunity to have it,) Robert ordered an entrecote steak, cooked rare, with vegetables of the day and a mushroom sauce. He enjoyed every bite, as did I! This time, he finished up with coffee, and I had Moelleux au chocolate, which turned out to be a warm chocolate cake in a cream sauce – really yummy! From there, we waddled back to the apartment, and are definitely in for the day!
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| My Italian salad (yet again!) |
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| R's Entrecote with veggies |
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| My Moelleux aux chocolate! |
As we have now covered basically everything we wanted to see in Nimes, I’m thinking we’ll probably be taking the car out tomorrow (as much as R would like to leave it in the parking garage until we leave on Saturday morning) and heading in some direction as yet undetermined! So, until tomorrow! Lots and lots of love to all!
m
xxx
Oh! One final note! It turns out that we’ve discovered, because of the slow internet speed, that we don’t think that everyone is receiving all of our blogs! We got a “delivery failure” notice for about 10 people for three past blogs, which I re-sent this morning; hopefully everybody has them now. However, please note. We try and post every evening. If you don’t hear from us at around the usual time, could you please send me an email and let me know?? I’d sincerely appreciate it, as it’s hard to tell exactly what does and doesn’t get sent out from here!
Lots of love,
m
xxx
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