Tour de France Stage 6: Nîmes

This is my 100th post! I feel like I should be having a cast party or something! LOL! Oh well, I guess I'll have a glass of wine with dinner instead.

We left Claira with a bit of dread because we knew how far we had to drive! (I was also nervous that we hadn't set the house alarm properly, but I guess we did.) However, my brilliant husband had planned some stops on the way, the first of which was Nîmes. This city is known for its Roman ruins. We spent the day visiting la Maison Carrée, les Arènes de Nîmes, Gate of Augustus and a beautiful park whose name escapes me which had a temple dedicated to Diana. We ate crepes from a street vendor which were really yummy.

As usual, here are some photos:

La Maison Carrée is a museum of antiquities of Nîmes and a Roman temple of Augustus and Roma from the first century AD, situated in the center of Nîmes. We walked around it and were very impressed by the scale and the fact that it is right in the middle of town.

Les Arènes de Nîmes is a Roman amphitheater of the first century. They were built between 50 AD and 100 AD, modeled on the Roman Colosseum. The arena has a capacity of 25,000 spectators divided into four zones and thirty-four galleries. The amphitheater had 34 rows of bleachers where the notaries and powerful families had first sitting. Their names were engraved in stone which reserved their place. During the fighting, the blood of gladiators dripped into and was mixed into the sand of the arena, therefore it was regularly replaced so that the spectators did not experience the smell of blood. They had a great audio tour which also explained and illustrated the different types of gladiators, their weapons and the purpose of different items of clothing and the gladiator room display was cool. It was boy heaven, but I actually learned a lot.

La Porte d'Augustus

Ruins of the Temple of Diana

An ancient coin from Nîmes

This symbol with the crocodile and palm trees is everywhere.

Street scenes

The kids found a video games store as seen by the picture of Mario above them. The sign says 'jeux video'.

We spent an uneventful night in Orange after wandering around trying to locate the hotel, as usual.