Day 19

Day 19:

Wednesday, April 8, 2009: Today was really fun! Shawna, Lance, Melissa, and I decided to go to Nimes for the day because there are no classes on Wednesdays. French students often have Wednesdays off but are required to go to school Saturday mornings – this might only be for grade school students. They also get a two-hour lunch break everyday because lunch is a huge custom in French culture.

And so we decided to meet at the train station for the 10:30am train. It was too early. We were all not ready to go by then and ended up missing the train. The next one didn’t come until noon so we had plenty of time to kill. Nimes is only a half hour from Avignon. The tickets were 8E per person roundtrip – the same as to Arles.

So once we got to Nimes, we decided to buy the city pass for tourists. Nimes is considered to be home to the largest collection of Roman ruins outside of Italy. It was founded as a retirement destination for Roman soldiers in 31 B.C. The pass cost us 7.50E and allowed us to see the three main sights in Nimes.

We began with the Maison Carree which looks like a Pantheon. There was a 3D movie about Nimes history so we did that. Afterwards, we decided to walk to the gardens and see the Tour Magnan: a lookout tower built by the Romans to keep watch for intruders. The gardens are on a hillside and really big. We spent a lot of time wandering around here before finally finding the tower. We climbed to the top for an excellent view of the city.

Fun fact: Nimes is known the world over for its production of jeans; thus came the name ‘denim’ literally meaning ‘from Nimes’.

We then found a place to eat before heading to the Arena. Our choice: McDonald’s! It sounded so good at the time but I think that, having only been out of the country for not even three weeks yet, I should have waited longer. It was 7E for the meal – almost double what it would be at home. It didn’t matter because it was well worth it. The McDonald’s was in a mall so after eating, we looked around for awhile.

We headed back to the center of town to spend time at the Arena. It was really cool. We climbed all the way to the top to get another great view of the city. We just sat here and walked around for a long time. Our train home did not leave until 8:30p.m.

We stayed at the Arena until it closed at 6:30p.m., then we wandered the city some more. The worst part about any city in France is that everything but restaurants and bars close at 7p.m. We found ourselves in the park with not much else to do but wait for out train home. Nevertheless, it was a great day.

(Google Nimes to discover more).