Jane and Kristi Travel Europe 2012: Nimes, France

(pronounced “Neem,” this is the place where denim was invented, thus the name “de Nim”).

So, we've been constantly reminded of Steve Martin's "It’s like those French have a different word for everything!" Jane had learned a bit of Italian for this trip, and Kristi already knew Spanish…neither of which were any help in Nimes. Much fewer people spoke English here too, so we made more use of the Phrase Book we ever thought we would need to (including at the cell phone store, actually pointing at phrases in the book.) J

Tuesday (July 24): we arrived in Nimes at about 6 p.m. after a day long train ride from Zermatt. Both of us were exhausted, but we managed to get a bit of a walkabout, and find a place to eat dinner. We both kept saying how much we needed to eat some protein, and this street café had – oh comfort food – cheeseburgers and fries! Damn good. Also, they had Sangria. This was a good place.

Wednesday: we didn’t like our hotel that much in Nimes, mostly because their internet was all wonky all the time, and we both had some work to get done. Also, it was further away from the pretty park/center of town. So, we spent this morning checking into a new hotel right across from the Center Park (also about 600 meters from the Roman Arena (the big draw here. See below). Part of that process, though, included sleeping in late, having a lovely lunch, walking lazily to the new hotel, sitting for a couple of Rose wines, using their internet in their lovely and huge air conditioned lobby...

We visited the Roman Arena –the best preserved Roman Arena in the world, then a Parthenon-like building in the center of town. In both cases, the Nimes people have kept these two ancient monuments in use: the arena still hosts concerts and other events, including bull fights; the Parthenon-type building is now used to show a 3D tourist film about the history of Nimes. It was pretty cool actually. A lot of eagle-view footage flying over the Provence area. After walking through the famous “People’s Park,” and sitting for a beer, we moseyed back to our hotel, for an early evening, eat-in dinner, and French TV.

The highlight was Thursday: We rented a car and drove over to Collias, and rented kayaks so that we could paddle our way 8 km down the Gard river, to the Pont du Gard: the largest and best preserved section of an ancient Roman aqueduct. That was amazing. The water was cool and calm. Half way to the Aqueduct we stopped for our picnic lunch on the riverside. And as you can see by the pictures the below, the experience of arriving to the Pont Du Gard was pretty awesome.

After a bus ride back to our car, we drove to a little village called Uzes - one of our top favorite 'cool' towns to spend more time in next trip. It is the center of the regions “Dukedom,” and apparently, if the flag is flying (which it was), the Duke is home. Mostly we just walked around (shockingly, we didn’t even bring our cameras! We just walked), looking at gorgeous cotton and linen clothes (Jane wants a new wardrobe and wants it to come from this village), and ate at a lovely brasserie (French street café).

We drove back to Nimes, and thought we were going to settle into our hotel room for the night, but there was a great Gipsy-Kings style band down on the square (we could see and hear them from our window), with throngs of people around the square. So, of course: passeggiata.

Both Tuesday and Wednesday nights had been quite quiet in Nimes, so this evening was quite the surprise: we both felt we had entered a parallel universe of Nimes. This street party extended through the entire town, down all the little pedestrian walkways, a different band in every little square. Tons of people with their kids, tons of adults with their drinks and cigarettes listening to jazz, or rock or salsa. It was very cool.

(It turns out that happens every Thursday night in Nimes during the summer. We had to ask our waitress when, on Friday, we walked around the same village at the same time, and it was nearly quiet as a door mouse again…)

Friday: We had a great breakfast at the hotel, and hopped into our car for a day trip down to Marseille. We hung out at the beach, ate lunch at a little beach side café, and then started on our way back so that we could stop at a little vineyard we had done some research on.

La Mas des Tourelles is a little vineyard about 30 km from Nimes, and it is the only place in the world where there is a working ancient Roman grape press. The family who owns this vineyard discovered ancient Roman winery ruins, and so they “reconstituted” the site, and now make wine using the same methods and recipes as the ancient Romans did. They get their recipes from the writings of Pliny the Elder, Lucius Columelle and Palladius, and from studying the artifacts of the site. We walked around the ruins, took a tour of the artifacts, and watched a movie about how they use the ancient press to make their wine. Then we tasted it. Three different types, using a kind of Roman grape-sugar called “frutum”, and herbs that you could smell in your nose before tasting….and one wine that smelled completely sweet, but did not taste sweet at all. That was a cool experience. We bought a bottle of the lightly sweet wine (called Mulsum), and a small bottle of the frutum wine (kind of like a port, called “Carenum”).

We came back from that incredible day, answered a few important emails, and walked over to a little Brasserie we liked. Had some pizza and “Panache” (beer with lemonade, inspired by Regina), and savored our final evening in Nimes.

And we are off to Barcelona!!