Building with Stone
I didn't get a chance to blog yesterday; the girls and I had a fabulous dinner that stretched into the late hours, but I'm going to quickly dash something off this morning before we get underway.
We began with breakfast out on the terrace with the other B&B guests. Now that we're further south, it's warm enough to comfortably eat outside in the morning. The table was covered with bread, butter, and preserves the hostess had made including fig and apricot.
Then we went to return our rental. It was a bit of a comedy of errors, but we finally got into our automatic and off we went to Nimes with the help(?) of our French language GPS. Yes, they only had an automatic vehicle with a French language GPS.... rather fun when none of us speak French. Eventually we figured out how it worked and even managed to find a public parking garage to stash the car. We were in Nimes to see the Roman arena.
This particular arena held 24,000 spectators for all the various games and battles staged in Roman times for the entertainment of the populace. The signage throughout the arena was excellent and gave us a sense of how the arena was used, right down to the different types of gladiators that fought in the arena and armor they used that distinguished each style.
Though the Colosseum in Rome is perhaps more famous, the arena in Nimes is in much better shape. We clambered all through, around, and over it.
The arena is still in use today for bullfights -- isn't that amazing? You can see some wall art celebrating the toreodor on one of the buildings right by the arena.
From Nimes we drove to Gordes and got our first taste of Provence's charm and light.
I'm so glad we have two more full days here.
We began with breakfast out on the terrace with the other B&B guests. Now that we're further south, it's warm enough to comfortably eat outside in the morning. The table was covered with bread, butter, and preserves the hostess had made including fig and apricot.
Then we went to return our rental. It was a bit of a comedy of errors, but we finally got into our automatic and off we went to Nimes with the help(?) of our French language GPS. Yes, they only had an automatic vehicle with a French language GPS.... rather fun when none of us speak French. Eventually we figured out how it worked and even managed to find a public parking garage to stash the car. We were in Nimes to see the Roman arena.
This particular arena held 24,000 spectators for all the various games and battles staged in Roman times for the entertainment of the populace. The signage throughout the arena was excellent and gave us a sense of how the arena was used, right down to the different types of gladiators that fought in the arena and armor they used that distinguished each style.
Though the Colosseum in Rome is perhaps more famous, the arena in Nimes is in much better shape. We clambered all through, around, and over it.
The arena is still in use today for bullfights -- isn't that amazing? You can see some wall art celebrating the toreodor on one of the buildings right by the arena.
From Nimes we drove to Gordes and got our first taste of Provence's charm and light.
I'm so glad we have two more full days here.
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