Nimes France- It Should’ve Just Been a Daytrip!

We arrived in Nîmes yesterday, but, after getting lost and walking an extra kilometer in the rain to find the hotel (which turned out to be pretty out of the way and far from city center), neither of us felt like going back out to explore; so we ate lunch at the hotel, hand-washed some laundry in the tub since we couldn’t find a laundromat, and watched some French TV – including what we think is their version of Deal or no Deal, but uses boxes instead of suitcases so we’re calling it Box or no Box 

Because I was worried we’d be short on time to see the city, I mapped out the sites I wanted to see today and made Paul wake up early to head out, but by 2:30 we were done our sightseeing!  Had it not been raining yesterday, we might have finished seeing Nîmes within hours of arriving – thank God we only scheduled ourselves for two days here!

We began by walking to Les Arènes de Nîmes, the best preserved Roman arena in the world and the main tourist attraction of Nîmes.  This was really the only site I was planning to pay to go into at first, but since the combo ticket to see the arena, the Maison Carrée and the Tour Magne is only 2.50 euro more and we had planned to walk to the other sites anyway, we went with a combo ticket.

After walking around the arena (which is pretty cool, but there’s not much to do except climb up to the top seats), we headed to the nearby Maison Carrée, the world’s only completely preserved Roman temple.  We thought it would be really cool, but we were hugely disappointed to find that the only thing inside is a lame 3D movie about the history of different heroes from Nîmes – and it wasn’t even good quality 3D!  Apart from going into the room where they show the film, there is no access to the inside of the temple   (editor’s note: for your mega loses)

On our way to the Tour Magne (the only tower from the original town that is still standing), we stopped for some lunch at a Vietnamese/Chinese restaurant.  We were hoping they would have some Phở to warm us up, but the menu only had rice dishes and combination plates.  I tried a combo plate that had a pork brochette, a spring roll, Vietnamese salad, and fried rice and Paul had curry chicken.  Apart from some fast food stir-fry with rice in Barcelona, this is the first bit of Asian food I’ve had since leaving Edmonton so I was happy but Paul was unimpressed.  The Tour Magne turned out to be just as disappointing as the Maison Carrée because the “spectacular” views of Nîmes weren’t so spectacular, but we found the nearby Jardins de la Fontaine to be quite enjoyable and spent a bit of time walking around before heading back to the hotel for a nap.

In the evening we ate at a Chinese buffet nearby the restaurant because, without walking back to city center, our choice was the buffet, the hotel restaurant again, or McDonald’s.  The buffet was actually a terrible idea, but oh well!  Hopefully when we go to Avignon tomorrow we’ll find some good French food and warmer weather!