Last year (OK, a couple of weeks ago) I read an article about hidden gems to visit in France. I haven’t been able to track down the article, but one of its 5 ‘gems’ was Nîmes. And it struck me how much I agreed with the author, what an eye-opener Nîmes is. (Please do ‘click’ on the photos – these are just thumbnails, and you can enlarge them with a click.)
We visit Nîmes on our Languedoc tour, and spend Wednesday night in the town, but before setting up The Chain Gang I’d never visited. It was just one of those towns in the south of France that probably wasn’t very interesting.
So Not True!
Firstly it’s a City – a bit of respect, please. But that’s the least of it. Wikipedia claims it is often referred to as ‘the French Rome’. I’ve not heard that, but it’s Roman links are what makes Nîmes so amazing.
Nîmes grew around the first Roman road in France, the Via Domita, linking Rome with Hispania (modern-day Spain). Julius Caesar gave land to returning veterans from his Nile campaign, starting just before BC, Nîmes became a prosperous Roman settlement. And it’s all around you.
My favourite Roman thing is the smallest of them all, the Castellum – more later.
The water source for Roman Nîmes was a natural spring, which emerges into the Gardens of the Fountain. The most extraordinary thing is that the spring appears naturally as a beautiful semi-circle in a small lake within the gardens. This is down to the rock formation underneath the surcace, but it’s a natural phenomenon. This source was transformed into France’s first civic gardens in the early 18th century – this is where we cycle to visit the ‘Fontaine’ on our way out of Nîmes on Thursday morning.
Over time Nîmes outgrew its fountain, so additional water was brought to the city via the extraordinary Aqueduct of Nimes, which brings water from just outside Uzes on a 50 Km journey that includes the Pont du Gard, and finished at a central distribution point close to the centre of Nîmes. This is the Castellum, and you can still see it today.
It isn’t as grand as the Pont du Gard, but its function was to distribute the water to key buildings in Nîmes once it arrived in town, 20,000 cubic metres per day. The Castellum is like a circular bath, perhaps 20 feet across and maybe 3 feet deep. The side of the bath has holes in it that used to be lead pipe outlets – each of the 10 holes would take water to, for example, the forum, the baths, the Maison Carré temple, the ampitheatre. And this Castellum is just sat there, behind a set of railings, on a little street in the North of Nimes. It’s amazing, but Nimes hardly seems to care, because they have so much other, and more spectacular, Roman stuff.
Firstly there’s the incredible Roman Arena. Right in the middle of the City, and more than 20 metres high, it’s still in use today. You might be surprised to learn it’s principle use – bull fighting (well, tourism really, but also bull fighting). There is lots of bull fighting in Provence and Languedoc. They don’t exactly promote it to tourists, but it’s everywhere. Including the Roman arena in Nimes.
We’ll have a look round on Thursday morning. And as we cycle from the Arena to the Fontane de Nimes, we’ll pass yet another amazing Roman building, the Maison Carrée. This Roman temple dates back to the 1st century, but I think its square shape makes it difficult to appreciate the scale of this beautiful temple in photos. It’s been heavily restored, and is now part of the UNESCO Heritage list (like evrything else in Nimes!).
Any Virginians might think it looks familiar, and that they’ve accidentally wandered into their own State Capitol. They almost have – Thomas Jefferson was so taken by the Maison Carré that he copied it for the State Capitol of Virginia.
Having seen the Arena, the Maison Carré, the Fontaine de Nimes and the Castellum in a single morning, I hope you’ll agree with my personal reappraisal of Nimes. Last year we met a young Irish lad beside the Castellum, visiting Nîmes for the weekend from Dublin, because he’d been able to get a return flight for €15. He couldn’t believe his luck! It really is an amazing place.
