What a beautiful city!

Up this morning about 8 to another gray day, but while it evidently rained during the night, it looked at least to be clearing a bit this morning. We had had such a nice late lunch yesterday at La Reserve that neither of us were hungry for dinner last night, so we munched on cheese and salami, and that was it. So, dinner tonight will be our roast chicken from the market, with the roast potatoes and green beans.

I did want to get to the bank this morning, and for preference, wanted to find a BNP Paribas, as their ATM’s usually ask if you want a variety of bills, rather than all 50’s…which is what we prefer (50’s occasionally being hard to change). So, found a BNP about 5 minutes away from the apartment, so decided to head their first and then see if we could find a café close by where we could get some breakfast; failing that, we figured we would stop at a patisserie and get some croissants and bring them back here. So, started out; a fairly straight walk of just a few minutes, and we arrived at a major street and what looked to be an entire banking area! Et, voila! Money, in various denominations, just like I had remembered from past BNP banks! Additionally, it turned out that right across the street from the bank was the Maison Carrée, a very old Roman ruin, as well as a lovely Café Napoleon that was serving breakfast!

Across the street from our apartment!

Beautiful church

Great breakfast!

Stunning Cafe Napoleon!

The café was very crowded, but we were able to find seats in the back. It seemed that there was only one very busy waiter for the entire place, but he finally made his way back to us, and we ordered: café Americainfor Robert with deux croissants, and chocolat chaud for me and a pain au chocolat with apricot jam. Everything was excellent – especially my hot chocolate, and we enjoyed it very much! There is a coffee maker here in the flat, with capsules, but Robert hasn’t tried it yet. Fortunately, he doesn’t really need to have coffee in the morning, and seems to get along without it quite well! (Although he does tend to be very attached to his Keurig machine at home, thanks to Brenda and Chris!).

From the Café Napoleon, we headed next door to Maison Carrée. There, we purchased deux Cartes Romanite, which will get us into the Maison, the Tower, and the Arena, as well as the Musee de la Romanite at discounted prices, which is great.

The Roman Maison Carree

Inside the Carree

The Maison Carrée was completed in 2 AD and actually served as the center of Nimes (known then as Nemausus). The Maison was a temple originally built to honor the first Roman Emperor, Augustus, and the cult of the Royal Family, and was used as such for several centuries. The interior of the Maison was reserved only for the priest and priestess, and actual cult ceremonies where the public could watch, were held at an altar outside the front of the building. The building itself, at that time, was surrounded by a large portico, with columns on all sides, and served also as a public meeting place. The fact that it has been preserved in such excellent condition for so long is incredible; apparently it is one of the best and largest preserved Roman structures still standing. One of my favorite things about the building was how its purpose was initially discovered. In 1758, a historian was actually physically hoisted up to the top of the structure (no mean feat at any time!) where he charted the series of holes that were left in the stone pediment across the front, used to attach long-lost bronze lettering. From this, he was able to ascertain what the Latin letters actually were, and thus provide a translation of the initial use of the building! Now I call that service under pressure! The building inscription read: (In English now, of course!) “To Gaius Cesar, Son of Augustus, Consul; to Lucius Cesar, Son of Augustus, Consul Designate; to the princes of youth.” (The “princes of youth” apparently refers to his adopted grandsons, Lucius and Gaius, who unfortunately both died in their youth, and were never able to ascend to be Emperor.)

At any rate, Augustus and his family (and Emperors after him) were usually deified after their deaths, to God-like status, and thus, building such as the Maison Carrée were dedicated to them. The City of Nimes has done a wonderful job in restoring the building and keeping it in incredible condition. Additionally, immediately next to the building is the current Carree d’Art, designed by Sir Norman Foster and home to a modern art collection. Several friends have recommended this museum to us, but as we really aren’t modern art fans at all, we’ve so far given it a miss…

From the Maison Carree, we headed toward the Arena in Nimes, which is just a few minutes walk away – and there it was! Truly, a spectacular Roman amphitheater in the center of Nimes! We are definitely going to visit inside, but as it was so gray and cloudy today, as well as being pretty damp, I would really like to wait to see if we can possibly get some sunshine on it! So, we walked around it and R took some photos, but we decided instead to visit the Musee de la Romanite for today, which is directly across the street.

The Arena of Nimes!

Not sure who this guys is, actually!

Me with statue of famous Nimes matador

But I find him really scary!

Stunning wall paintings

The white lines depict what the rest of the wall looked like

Pediment from building

More pediments; loved the bulls heads!

Goddess Diana

Ancient sculpture of child with dog!

Entered a fascinating new building, checked our coats, and headed to the second floor, which was the start of the exhibition. And WOW, is just one of the adjectives for this incredible museum! This place is truly state of the art – and even beyond! We saw the use of electronics like we’ve never seen in museums anywhere else in the world – and the fact that everything actually worked as it was designed made it even better! They have a wonderful collection of antiquities – beautiful mosaics, some incredible sculpture, and many great and unique offerings! Additionally, they have a very large collection of beautifully constructed large manquettes (models) of Roman buildings all over the world, as well as those here in Nimes, all beautifully done. It was fun to see those – like the Pantheon in Rome and the Parthenon in Athens – that we have previously visited, as well as those we have yet to see.

A quick cup of (very strong!) coffee!

The Musee de la Romanite

At any rate, this museum is truly world class, and well worth spending several hours in. We had a very enjoyable time!

After this, we decided to have drinks (coffee for R and water for me) at the café across the street – beautiful views of both the amphitheater and the museum! And from there, we walked back to the apartment.

Now getting ready to figure out how to work the oven – and needing to convert 350 degrees F into Celsius, and so forth – so we can heat up our chicken and potatoes. Still wondering what we did and how we managed before computers made things so easy! So, more tonight when we have photographed dinner!

Symbol of the City of Nimes

Loved the crocodile in gold!

Oh! Forgot another point that R just mentioned! The city symbol for Nimes is a palm tree with a crocodile – we’re seeing it everywhere, and I’ve included a couple of photographs that R has taken. I know we saw a crocodile at the museum yesterday, but we had no idea they were so consistent with Nimes! The palm tree is an old Roman symbol for victory, while the crocodile represents Egypt. The text, “Col Nem”, means Colonia Nemausus, or settlement of Nîmes. The emblem dates back to 1535, when François I, an antiquity buff, awarded Nîmes a new coat of arms to replace an old one with a bull on a red surface.

xxx

Done with dinner! And wow, there is really no chicken that is as good as French chicken anywhere we have ever been! R figured out how to work the oven, and we put the chicken and the potatoes in together with another pan for roasting the green beans. Everything came out at the same time, R carved up the chicken, and voila! Dinner! I took the trash out (apparently it’s picked up twice a day here!!) and R did the dishes. Now (hopefully) I’ll be able to get the blog posted and then we can drink wine and read our books! Last night, the British TV channels had a Midsomer Murder on that we watched (Philip, who is a Brit himself, has both French and British television, but unfortunately no sports channels at all … oh well! We didn’t come to France to watch TV!). Tonight, ITV3 is showing Endeavor, which we’re not fond of – especially when we can’t figure out how to put on subtitles – we can’t understand anything anyone is saying! Oh well! We’ll just stick to our books!