France's Roman Ruins

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We took a day trip to Pont du Gard and Nimes today to see some Roman.... stuff. I can't call them ruins because of how immaculately preserved they are.

Pont du Gard is an enormous aqueduct bridge across a valley. It's very impressive, especially since the Romans built all of this stuff without the help of Sir Isaac Newton... I guess they just guessed and got lucky a whole bunch. We hiked around a bit to get some good veiws, and some good pictures. My only complaint is that we had to spend about 6 euro to take the bus there, and another 6 euro to take the bus to Nimes, so it was kind of pricey for the 20 minutes worth of sightseeing we could accomplish there. Still, it was cool.

Nimes, like Avignon, only has about three things to see. But they're more interesting, and they don't seem to overcharge. The Roman arena in Nimes is the best preserved in the world. It's about as old as the Roman Collesium, and is estimated to have held 24,000 people in it's day (Rome's held 60,000), but they probably don't pack people in like they used to, because it doesn't seem quite that big, but it's still very large.

It's actually so well preserved that they still use it today. Bullfighting is part of the culture of Southern France, but in addition to the Spanish style, where they end up killing the bull, they have a Provencal style where the bull lives. Instead, their are a whole group of people trying to grab a tassel off of the charging bulls horns (without getting gored by the bull). The bullfighter that does it first is the winner. It looks pretty exciting, but we missed the week long festival by a day, so we didn't catch it. We did get a free auidoguide tour which was very informative.

We checked out the other smaller Roman buildings in Nimes from the outside before returning to Avignon where we hung out at the hostel bar and played cards with Pier-Luc. Another good night.... except for that fire alarm and the constant door slamming, and ice cold showers...

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Photos

Pont du Gard
2000 years old. They don't make them like they used to.

Matador
Nerves of Steel.... Get it? ...Yeah, I'm sorry.