On to Nimes!

Sunday, 29 August 2010

Bonjour!

We woke up in sunny and warm Aigues-Mortes and prepared to say goodbye to our wonderful hotel, Villa Mazarin. Headed out about 9 and pointed the car back towards Nimes, knowing that we were WAY early, but wanting to leave our luggage at the hotel while we explored the city. We got there about 9:30 or so, and voila! – they had a room we could have!! Terrific! Everything just as I remembered it – les enfants – literally, meaning infants, but that’s how the manager referred to the hotel school students who were assigned to help us! Dropped everything in the room, and then headed into the city center to the Arena.

The nice thing about it being Sunday is that there were lots of parking spaces around, and traffic wasn’t bad at all! (One day last year when I was trying to get through town, I got caught in gridlock with a city bus, because of all the people in town for their annual fete!) This time we ambled over to the arena and headed inside for the audio tour. To be honest, the audio tour says that of the 400 amphitheatres built by the Romans, this one in Nimes is in the second best repair after the Coliseum. I hate to disillusion them, but honestly, the Arena di Verona in Italy is in MUCH better shape, and they use it for operas and concerts every year too! Nimes hosts a summer music festival, which is just now drawing to a close, and then in a couple of weeks, they will host their annual Spanish-type of bullfighting…NOT something to our taste at all! The audio tour was interesting, but they went WAY too far in describing the gladiatorial battles and slaughtering of animals – I didn’t need to hear any of that – so the good thing with an audio tour is that you can just turn it off when you don’t want to listen any more! Which we did!!

We crossed the street from the arena and picked up a light lunch at a small café. R had a very interesting combination of what appeared to be roasted onions and anchovies on a pastry base. He said it reminded him of something his grandmother used to make! I said: You can keep the anchovies! I had a salad of mozzarella, tomato and pesto. However, rather than how it is usually served, this time it was done as a stack – diced tomatoes on the bottom, diced mozzarella in the middle, and then a couple layers of fresh basil on top! Very unusual, and very good!
From there we walked down Ave. Victor Hugo toward the Maison Caree, an old Roman building that is in the process of being renovated and restored. The last time we were both through this way – maybe 10 years or so ago – it was in desperate need of cleaning. Now it is lovely and white again, at least the half that has already been restored. We will look forward to seeing the completed job when it is finished, sometime next year.

From Maison Caree we headed to the Jardins des fontaines. This garden was built around a natural spring that bubbles up in the middle of a small pond. Very unusual! The stream is then diverted out of the park and down one of the central boulevards, into a lovely canal; really beautiful, and we were very impressed! At the very TOP of the park is the Tour Magne, another old Roman fortification that had served in ancient times as part of the wall around Nimes. We climbed up --- and up – and up … like climbing a lighthouse inside! – until we got to the top. We were again very lucky, as we had the observation platform to ourselves, and the view was amazing!

From there we walked d-o-w-n a long way and back past the arena and picked up the car. I had wanted to show Robert the place where I’d booked in last year, but then moved, because it was SO far out of town! (Not sure if or what I was thinking!) Beautiful drive, across the Gard and into Uzes. From there Robert navigated us back to our hotel, circling west around Nimes to come in from the side. (That had been my original idea last year, but obviously I was lacking a good navigator to help make it happen!)

It was by now 4 p.m. so we decided to take naps and catch up on some paperwork at the hotel. Very restful place; very enjoyable!

Up around 7 and headed out to look for dinner. We ran into two things: 1) Sunday night is traditionally a night when restaurants are closed – most French families have their large Sunday meal at lunchtime, not needing restaurants in the evening! And 2) As this is the last weekend in August, it seems that most folks have headed back north and probably have to go in to work tomorrow morning! Therefore, some of the places locally are either holding family parties (ran into that!) or are closed altogether! Did finally end up at a small place fairly close by. R had chicken with vegetables and chips, and I had steak with an excellent Roquefort sauce.
Back to the hotel about 9:30 p.m. and will post blog for today. Tomorrow we have two objectives: 1) LAUNDRY! (Yes, that, again…) If the Carrefour near here isn’t open or doesn’t have a laundry, we have two addresses in Montpellier that we plan on trying! And 2) head to Tarascon-sur-Ariege in the Pyrenees! I was able to book a reservation for us for the Grottes de Naiux on Tuesday at 1 p.m. Can’t wait! There are three other, smaller caves that we also want to see…hopefully the timing will work out – or we’ll just have to come back!!

Lots of love for now!

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