La ciudad de Nimes conserva su arena romana en muy buen estado, de hecho de vez en cuando se realizan corridas de toro (que incluyen al menos dos modalidades:una que consiste en matar al toro – Nimes es el unico lugar en francia que se permite eso – y una que consiste en sacarle cosas pegads al toro). Esto te pone en claro que conocimiento y que bien hacian las cosas los romanos.

Quite an exciting day in the end!

After the Pont du Gard we headed to Nimes, where we stopped off to look at the Roman amphitheatre and a Roman temple. They're both pretty much intact, and the amphitheatre is particularly impressive. You can climb right to the top of the seating, which is pretty high.

The fun started as we headed out of Nimes towards the Camargue. This was the point at which I inadvertently ran a red light and got pulled over by the police. Oops! It took quite a lot of talking to them before they asked whether I was from the area. As soon as I said that we were from England they changed from being very severe about it all to being very helpful, and giving us directions, which was handy because we were getting a bit lost!

It was getting quite close to sunset so we didn't stop long in the Camargue; just enough to get a bit of a look at the flamingos, and have a bit of a drive around some of the small roads. We didn't really do the place justice; we'll have to go back some day.

The first day we did the city of nimes.   First we saw The Maison Carrée,  a well preserved Roman temple built in 19-16 BC.   Then we headed on over the the Amphitheatre, another well preserved structure from the roman Empire.  After walking around the city we headed out to Pont Du Gard.   That is the aqueduct built by the romans. 

Was in Nimes for a friend's wedding. Obviously the wedding didn't take up the entire weekend which gave me some time to explore the area.

Had been previously to the Pont du Gard but that was several years before so as I was driving down the autoroute I saw a sign for the Pont and decided to call in. It was well worth seeing again. Amazing to think it was put together such a long time ago and is still standing.

Nimes itself has a pretty centre. I was there for Bastille Day weekend hence there was a fireworks display. They certainly didn't skimp on the ordenance! It was a pretty spectacular show. Nimes itself seemed pretty safe at night to wander around but I wasn't out late as I was by myself and had to get up for the wedding the next day.

If you are there a visit to the Arena is well worth it and the Maison Carre isn't bad if you have the time. There was another castle on a hill over looking Nimes but unless you are bored I wouldn't bother climbing up.

After this I headed through the Gorges du Verdon to Nice. I would recommend the trip through the Gorges it is more interesting than sitting on the Autoroute. However it is much slower, especially if you are stuck behing a damned Dutch caravan. Overtaking is not that easy with all the twists and turns. But if you have a nice car you can have fun when the road is empty. However a lot of the corners don't have crash barriers so I wouldn't push to much!

Nice was not as nice as I expected. Coming in my car is took a while to find the tourist area. I was staying quite far up the Promenade des Anglais and it took a while to work out that the business centre and the tourist area were not one and the same. Hence punching City Centre into your satnav will not help. Also if you end up heading towards the airport on the Promenade it is not that easy to do a U-turn.

After Nice I headed along the coast to Monaco which was my favourite bit and is in a separate entry. Then I called in at Cannes (which was much nicer than Nice) and St. Tropez (where there seems little to do other than spend money and look at rich people on their boats.)

Definitely is a place I would like to come back to with friends to party.

This historical Fast food (since 1992) is the first Döner Kebab place in the City. It is renowned all over the region as the best kebab in the surroundings. You will find there a wide range of suculent sandwiches all from the fine Turkish cuisine. The two chiefs are actually the owners of this small and modest place. Both of them are Turkish, lovely and warmful. If you go by Nimes for whatever reasons, have a walk there, enjoy your Kebab at any time of the day

Nimes is another place where my old interest in Romans was re-awakened. It has an even bigger and, in my opinion, more interesting colosseum than Arles, and again it is still being used today. We tried again to climb to the top and this time we persisted because we had sen a group of people sunbathing up there. It was a little confusing trying to find which set of stairs led where, but we finally made it up there. From there we had a really nice view of the town and surrounding hills, so we stayed for a while before moving on to have a look around town.

After a full circle we came back to the Colosseum and decided to have lunch in its shade. It was maybe a bit busier than I'd have liked, next to the road, but it did its job. Although I still regret to this day that I did not order mussles instead of a boring pasta dish. Then we went on to see the Roman temple, which is in very good condition. I'm not sure what they did with the inside (it is pretty much a mini-museum, showing some statues), because I was quite curious to know what it would have looked like in Roman times and what went on in there. But the outside was stunning, very well-preserved. Out of the the Roman highlights we saw on thir trip, I think this was maybe my favourite, with the colosseum in Nimes a close second.

Today myself, Dr.Bell (the program director), and 5 other uga students went to Nimes and the Pont du Gard.

We took an early train out of Montpellier and rode for about half an hour to Nimes, an old town in the same deparment (french "departments" are comparable to our counties in the states) as Montpellier - Languedoc-Roussillon. There is this amazing old Roman arena in Nimes, that is the second biggest after the Collesium in Rome, and the best preserved! Audio guides were included with our entrance to the arena, so I learned lots of interesting things. For instance, did you know that the word "arena" is the latin word for "sand"...thus, "arena" is a reference to the sand that creates the floor of the arena itself, that was there to soak up the blood of the gladiators and Christians who were executed?

The Pont du Gard is an old Roman aqueduct built c. 20 CE...dates back to the time of Christ!!! How cool is that? It is an impressive sight to behold as well. Not to mention the perfection of the engineering that staggers the modern mind! It was built to transfer water from the Eure springs near Uzes to Nimes, and slopes down (from Uzes to Nimes) at a constant rate of 0.25cm/km (or something close to that - dont remember the exact number, sorry!)...either way, quite astounding. I'll try to post pictures from it soon.

Tomorrow, we are going to "la plage" (the beach). Oh, and the verdict on the beaches here? OK. Not the gulf. But let's just be honest, there's nothing like the gulf.