"Roman Holiday" in Nimes -- More Roman Stuff to See

 

Nimes is said to be "the most Roman city outside of Rome". The buildings left there from 2,000 years ago are surely a testament to this idea. You get a sense of the Roman presence immediately at the train station, which although it was built in 1839, reflects the Roman history of the city with the building's numerous arches. However, as you walk the city, you are confronted with old Roman buildings, gates, and statues that create awe-inspiring touchstones with the Empire's reach, dominance, and importance in France. Below are some more intricate descriptions of the major urban artifacts of Roman civilization in ancient Gaul.

The exquisite Maison Carrée remains one of the best preserved temples of Roman civilization. More astonishing, over the centuries it has never ceased to be used for something beyond its original purpose. Various modifications of both the building and its surrounding area have accommodated various needs for different times.

 

For example, in the 11th century, a chapel was added to the northern façade, only to be destroyed at the outset of the religious wars.

 

From the 11th to the 16th century the Maison Carrée served as a private house. In the late 16th century, the consuls gave it to a private owner. It subsequently changed owners several times and suffered the most serious damage during its history after having been transformed to a hostel and stables. The duchess of Uzès even considered using it as a tomb for her husband.

 

From 1673 until the French revolution in 1789, Augustinian monks made the temple into a church. After the revolution, the building served as a depot and a granary. In 1791, the Maison Carrée was sold as public property.

 

In the 19th century, the entire quarter of this section of the city unwent considerable change, including restoration of the ancient temple. In the process, several adjacent buildings blocking the Maison Carrée were removed. After serving as the Archives for the first prefecture of the Gard Department, it was later  transformed to a museum in 1823 and listed as an historic monument in 1840.

 

In 1993, the British architect Norman Foster built the Carré d’Art, a modern counterpart of the Maison Carrée, housing a museum of modern art and the public library of Nimes. He also redesigned the adjacent public square to ensure harmony between the two buildings and create a new forum.

 

Between 2006 and 2010, the façade of the Maison Carrée was completely restored. Today, visitors are allowed to enter the building and watch a short film about the family that built it and whose progeny were entrusted with its keep. However, it would probably have been more captivating to restore the interior to its temple-like form.

 

 

The Maison Carrée is an example of monumental Roman religious architecture. Built on a platform dominating the public square, its outline and proportions (25 meters long, 12 meters wide, 17 meters high) are similar to the temple of Apollo in Rome. Its façade contains six columns and eleven embedded columns are located on its sides.

 

The temple’s outline includes a colonnade (pronaos), which gives access to the cella. This part of the temple housed a statue of the divinity and was accessible only to the priests. Rites and public processions were exclusively celebrated outside in front of an altar.

It was built between 2-5 C.E., when the Emperor Augustus had a number of public buildings constructed in the colony of Nemausus (Nimes), to promote its development. Limestone rocks from the local quarries of Lens and Barutel  were used to construct the temple and several other Roman monuments of Nimes. These materials are occasionally used today, especially for restoration work.

The fluted columns don the elaborate Corinthian capitals. The cornice above consists of a triple-layered architrave (fasces), decorated with a frieze of foliage with birds. The frieze symbolically acknowledges the benefits Augustus brought to the conquered Gauls.

 

The entrance to the temple consists of 15 steps. In ancient times, it was very important to climb an uneven number of steps to enter a temple. Since the left foot was considered a sign of bad luck, you placed your right foot both on the first and the last step of the stairs.

 

 

 

 

Underneath the sculpted coffered ceiling lies the door of the Cella. It was made by the “Compagnons du Devoir”, a traditional French craftsmen’s association, in the early 19th century. The roof was restored in the late 20th century based on models of antique tiles found during excavation work. The interior of the Maison Carrée no longer contains any traces of its antique décor. No signs of ploychroy were found during the latest restoration of the monument. Nevertheless, it is likely that the Maison Carrée was painted in the manner of antique temples.

 

C. CAESARI. AUGUSTI. F. COS. L. CAESARI. AUGUSTI. F. COS. DESIGNATO PRINCIPIBUS. IVVENTUTIS 

“To Caius Caesar, son of Augustus, consul, and to Lucius Caesar, son of Augustus, consul designate, to the princes of youth.”

An erudite scholar from Nimes, Jean-François Séguier (1703-1784), was able to reconstruct the inscription on the temple’s façade from the holes in the cornice, to which the bronze letters, now disappeared, had been affixed. Séguier’s reading was confirmed by style analysis and archaeological data in the twentieth century.

The Maison Carrée was identified as a temple dedicated to the imperial cult. Caius and Lucius Caesar were the adopted grandsons of Augustus, designated by him as his heirs. They both died at a very young age: Lucius in 2 C.E., and Caius in 4 C.E. Based on these two dates, it can be assumed that the temple was built during the first few years of the 1st century C.E.

The forum, a vast square lined with porticoes and public buildings was a gathering place destined for a multitude of activities from religious and political life, trade and jurisdiction. The curia, the gathering center of the local Senate, was located on the opposite, northern end of the forum. This monumental ensemble was surrounded by porticoes to the east and west. In the upper left-hand corner stands the Arena.

 

Archeologists have found vestiges of several other public buildings in the area of the Augustan forum: the foundations of two rectangular buildings at the location of the Carrée d’Art, and those of an oblong building discovered during excavation work prior to the construction of the parking lot underneath the Place d’Assas. Archaeological excavation work carried out around the Maison Carrée in 1990 has revealed the existence of a residential area older than the forum, dating back to the 1st century B.C.E.

 

Not far from the Maison Carré on the main road was this statue of Emperor Antoninus Pius. It looks Roman, but it was sculpted in Carrara marble by a local, Auguste Bosc, in 1864. The city was preparing for a regional exhibition and decided to remove the insalubrious trough located on this spot, just across the street from the Jardin de la Fontaine canal. Architect Henri Révoil transformed this area into a small park surrounded by a wrought iron fence (created by iron smith Martius Nicolas). The statue was installed in the park in 1874.

 

Ramparts of Nimes

Diamond-shaped Nimes (at least the old city) was a walled city at one time--and among the largest in Roman Gaul. The walls were six kilometers long with nearly 80 towers and 10 gates. The walls themselves were 9-10 meters high and more than two meters thick. Below is a model of the wall with indicators of major buildings, gates, and towers.

On the southside of the city in the garden of the Musée de la Romanité is a portion of the rampart.

Photo credit: Musée de la Romanité

 

 One of main gates of the Roman rampart was the Augustine Gate, so named because the Emperor Augustus helped to pay for it. The two main central arches were for vehicles and the two smaller side arches were for pedestrians.

                                                            

 

Artist's rendition of the original Augustine Gate

 

The Augustine Gate opened to the Via Domitia, a 170-mile Roman road that ran along the Mediterranean coastline and into Lyon on the north and the Pyrenees on the south. Roads were built by the army with slave labor.

 

Engraved stone military columns were markers on the cobblestone road.

 

A portion of the Via Domitia with the ever-present grooves of chariot wheels.

Temple of Diana

These ruins turned out to be the most moving for me in the whole city of Nimes. Even though this building has no connection to the goddess, I went along with its name and mused on one of my favorite classical characters. Diana is the lone huntress who maintains her independence, rises above the scandals of Mount Olympus, invests herself in Nature, and gets the job done. She is a no-nonsense type of woman who is honest, matter-of-fact, and doesn't suffer fools lightly. (Ask Actaeon. He inadvertently caught sight of Diana bathing and was transformed into a deer. Hounds later track him down and kill him.)

Diana is goddess of the hunt, the moon, and the Underworld--a "triple-form deity".

She is depicted here as the Roman goddess, Artemis, in her most iconic form as the Huntress. Men and women worshiped her for a successful hunt, however, she was also the goddess of wild animals and a lover of Nature. She is usually depicted wearing a short chiton (tunic) for agility and with a deer or dog by her side in the midst of the hunt as she reaches over her shoulder to pull an arrow from her quiver. This sculpture stands in the Gallo-Roman Museum in Lyon.  

According to Rachel A. Diana, the goddess oversees the transitions in the lives of her worshippers. Given that she is goddess of the moon, which orbits the earth, has its many phases, and waxings and wanings, it is important to note that she never completely disappears. In fact, the ancients believed that these changes were metaphors for the way she gave life and took it away; from light to darkness and from death to life. This transitory nature is expressed as "trivia", an epithet for Diana which comes from the Latin word, trivium, and translates to "crossroads". So, Diana Trivia is the guardian of the crossroads and transition from one place to another, be it literal or metaphorical. 

 

 

 

  

 

The Temple of Diana consists of a main room, the vaulted cella flanked by corridors. It is part of an Augusteum, a sanctuary devoted to the cult of the emperor and his family, and doubtless played a role in celebrations.

 The eastern wall probably provided space for a library, which suggests that the central room may also have been a place for gatherings and public dialogue.

 

 

The left-over pieces of the temple elicit a kind of sadness of their long-ago greatness. They inspire a reflection on how once-dominant cultures and empires gradually decline, fall onto themselves, and sometimes disappear.  

Today, as we live during a time of changing values and structures that are rapidly being transformed into something else for some other purpose, perhaps Diana, the guardian of crossroads and transitions offers consolation and guidance as the values and mores of 20th century industrial society are morphing into new values and mores of 21st century technological society. 

So, what will the world look like 2,000 years from now? How will we be regarded by those who will live then? What will be our legacy? Should we even care? Surely we have made some great strides in our world with science and technology, globalization and cultural diversity, the futility of war, rights for women and minorities, and care for the unfortunate (at least through government and religious programs). However, we have far to go in taking care of the environment, saving our planet's dying species, eliminating unfairness and injustice discrimination against women and minorities, reducing the disparity between rich and poor, reducing violence and terrorism, and appreciating beauty over mere function. How will we evolve our brains and souls to meet these challenges? Maybe Diana Trivia can inspire us for managing these "crossroads."

 

The Temple of Diana, the lover of Nature, reminds us that the solid stone of man-made structures can interact harmoniously with the natural environment, even one that is cultivated. It is remarkably pleasing to the eye, and it emits a quality of tranquility that invites and spurs us on to contemplation and wonderment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The builders paid attention to the beauty of artistic detail with carved stone and painted pillars. The central hall of the building also illustrates the magnificence of a people and culture that existed two millennia ago and left an art and architecture that had to be derived from a depth of soul.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
                                                         A tunnel running through the side of the building was rather intriguing and unexpected, so I played with it through pictures from various angles and different qualities of light.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Temple of Diana is tucked away on the periphery of the Jardin de la Fontaine. The old temple stones attest to the eternity of time and our small and brief place in its scheme. The stones endure--even in ruins. Nature endures, although in different forms. Time goes on without the ancient people in their day or us in ours. Myths continue whether we realize them or not. What we take from history is usually selective and our interpretations influence our conceptions of truths. Nevertheless, in uncovering truth, we must seek to understand how history shapes us and makes us who we are.

Resources

The Phases of Diana: Goddess in Flux --  https://commons.mtholyoke.edu/arth310rdiana/the-moon/  

Nimes Office of Tourism

 

"Roman Holiday" in Nimes -- Food and Accommodations

     

 

When I travel I try to go as cheaply as possible so that I can go on more trips in the future. My trip to Nimes was no exception. I found an Airbnb, ate simple meals, wrapped up dinner rolls for my breakfast, walked or took buses, and found bargains for my train ride there and back. Occasionally, I'd splurge with a hazelnut crepe like this one that I bought from a street vendor outside the Jardin de la Fontaine.  Mmmm-good!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first stop when I arrived in Nimes was my Airbnb apartment. Giles, my host, met me on the street outside my Airbnb, called "Le Nid" (the Nest) in front of this beautiful building. The Nid was a cozy attic apartment on the third floor, and Giles was very proud of it. Perhaps it was a new investment venture for him. Like several French Airbnbs where I've stayed, the host does not live in the unit. That means that rendez-vous and door-key arrangements are texted. 

 Thankfully, an elevator took us up two floors leaving only 16 steps to climb up a narrow, wooden staircase. The Nid had all the standard amenities except Wifi, which was fine since I didn't bring my computer. My cell phone worked just fine there and kept me in touch with email and Internet news. The TV worked with just one hand-held remote! Giles gave me a brief tour, a set of keys, the codes to open the front door, and a tip about the Jardin de la Fontaine, whose canal walkway was just outside my building. He told me about the nearby stores and boulangeries as well as the Halles covered market in the old city (7 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.) 

 

The Nid's beautiful building highlighted these expressive sculptures that were encrusted on its exterior. Some fine artwork here!

 

           

 

The Nid was simple but cozy with a bed, TV, kitchenette, bathroom, a nice hot shower, and towels all in about 200 square feet.

   

 

Nimes provides lots of food options for various prices and venues. I also discovered that there was some Italian influence in this area, but not as much as Nice, according to one take-out food vendor. He sold me the Sicilian dish called orangini, which I took home with me to eat.

     

 

 

    One of my restaurant delights was Joe's Bar, which was right on the main street near the Maison Carré and a 10-minute walk from my Airbnb apartment. Joe's served food fairly early, which made it especially attractive because I don't like to be out in the dark alone. In mid-October, night falls around 7:30-8 p.m. While I waited for the 6:30 "dinner hour" with my huge chicken Cæsar salad, I treated myself to a rum and Coke. (I had had a dream about this drink a couple weeks before.)

                                

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joe's is a sports bar and apparently a popular place among the young and for families on a night out. You order your drinks and food at the bar and then pick them up when your hand-held buzzer goes off. While I waited for my order, there happened to be a baseball game on the TV, which made me ecstatic. It's been four years since I've seen a game! This one was between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox during the fall playoffs. It was good to see something very familiar after being away from home for three years. Lately I've been feeling a bit homesick since the prospects of going back will have to be put off for another year thanks to the coronavirus pandemic.

 

 

Many of France's cities have Middle Eastern restaurants. I ate at one with a huge plate of lamb kebab, French fries, and a salad. Fortunately, there was outdoor seating, which I prefer during these days of coronavirus. It's just a little safer.

 

 

For lunch on another day I had eggplant parmesean. I was one of the first to arrive at the restaurant at 12 noon. During the course of my leisurely meal, the place filled up quickly both inside and out. The small tables of the restaurant had to be re-arranged to accommodate one large group.

 

I didn't find any restaurants that served alligator (as they do in New Orleans), but this big fellow was sitting outside a row of restaurants in a pool of water. He is the city's mascot. Citizens of Nimes are crazy about alligators here and they sell stuffed green ones at tourist shops.

 

 

 

"Roman Holiday" in Nimes -- One of the Most Beautiful Canals in the World

The beautiful Jardin de la Fontaine has been a popular destination in Nimes for nearly three centuries. The original Spring of Nemo built by the Romans supplied water for the city. In the 1700s as the growing city needed a better source of safe drinking water, a network of canals was constructed. It was built just after the gardens in Versailles were built for Louis XIV, and it was the first garden created for the general public and not just the monarchy.

The booming textile industry also benefited from the canal system by providing water for a new product called denim, (from the French "de" meaning "from" Nimes) which eventually became material for blue jeans. Dyers' workshops relied on water from the spring in the gardens and the flow was too irregular to be relied on at all times. The canals collected and stored large amounts of water that could be available anytime.

The canals were laid out in the eighteenth century on the site of an ancient spring and in an area that includes the Tour Magne, which hovers on a hilltop above the garden, and the Temple of Diana, located on the west side of the garden. It is interesting that an engineering public works project like this would exact such beauty and detail. It begs the question that if the canal were built today, would planners have taken such pains to design such a beautiful and accessible place instead of a functional water works project of steel and concrete?

 

The sculptures of the Nymphaeum were commissioned specifically for the Jardin de la Fontaine. The central figure represents the Nymph of Spring, who is sitting over the original spring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This patch of green grass with a palm tree in the midst of the stone is the resident ducks' respite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nîmes underwent some major beautification projects during the eighteenth century, however, the Jardins de la Fontaine by Jacques-Philippe Mareschal, the king's military engineer, and Nîmes' architect Pierre Dardailhon was a major achievement (1740-1749). The Romans had used this site as a source for water. It was abandoned during the Middle Ages but was later discovered during work on regulating the flow of the spring.

   

 

The statues and urns were purchased in 1747 when the Château de la Mosson near Montpelier was demolished. The following Greek gods are placed around the Source: Hades (holding a cornucopia symbolizing the underground world's wealth), Pan (fertility god), Dionysus (god of wine), and a man holding a torch.

The canals snake through the northwestern part of the city to create some interesting structures that extend over a large part of the city.

 

 

   

 

The park is a destination for many different publics. Here some young people on a school track team run through the park. The park is also a venue for concerts as indicated by the stage below.

 

 

The beautiful backdrop of the fountain provides stairways that lead to Tower of Magne (right), which is a steep climb to the summit of the hill. The 32 meter high Gallo-Roman structure was built in the third century AD for defensive purposes.

 

    

A statue of the poet, Antoine Bigot (1825-97), stands near the bottom of the grand staircase on the eastern side of the garden. He was the first French poet to write in in the Languedoc or Occitan language, which is spoken in southern France, Monaco, Italy's Occitan Valleys, Catalonia, and southern Italy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The symbol of Nimes is an alligator and palm tree. It goes back to Roman times when the Emperor Augustus conquered his arch rival, Marc Antony and his lover, Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. Here it tops the gates of the Jardin de la Fontaine, but the symbols are found everywhere in the city in various forms. 

 

 

Two views of the grand walkway leading up to the Jardin lines the street on both sides. This is a popular walking area with the rush of water swooshing past pedestrians.

 

 

 

The walkway is dedicated to those who lost their lives in the flood of October 3, 1988. Notice the logo of Nimes: the alligator and palm tree.

 

                        

Resources

 

Nimes Office of Tourism

"Roman Holiday" in Nimes -- Train Adventures

 

My adventure to Nimes started and ended with the SNCF  train system.

Outbound, I went through Lyon, which is northward from Le Puy before it goes southward to Nimes. My return trip took me through mountains and little towns, along with some surprises that made the trip longer but more interesting.

I left Lyon on the TGV. Of course, I had heard of the TGV, but this was the first time I had ever ridden one.

TGV stands for"Très Grand Vitesse". It is a high-speed train that was a great innovation in inter-city travel in France starting in 1981--and saved the French railways, according to SNCF President Louis Gallois.

After Japan introduced the Shinkansen also known as the "Bullet Train" in 1959, the French government investigated newer, faster trains using hovercraft and the Aérotrain air-cushion vehicle. Meanwhile, the SNCF began researching high-speed trains on conventional tracks from 1966-1974 and gained approval for developing them from French President Georges Pompidou.

The TGV trains were originally designed to be powered by gas turbines, however, the 1973 oil crisis caused a reversal of that strategy, and the trains became electric. In 1976, the SNCF ordered 87 trains with the first lines of service going between Paris and Lyon. In 1981 high-speed trains were later connected to other major French cities (Marseille, Lille, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Rennes, and Montpellier) and neighboring countries. Today, the TGV network in France carries 110 million passengers a year--and on this trip, I was glad to be one of them.

 

Nimes Arrival

I arrived in Nimes on a rainy day, but that didn't dampen my excitement at visiting this great, old city. Last year, I became acquainted with the city through GeoHistoire magazine, the French twin of National Geographic. I knew I had to visit it when I got the chance. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The train station was initially built in 1839. Between 1840-1844 a second station was built on top of a viaduct, which seems odd compared with most stations where trains go underground or at ground level. The architecture's neoclassical style is reflective of the city's Roman past as the long halls of the station sported rounded arches. 

City buses were available outside the front of the station with automatic ticket dispensers nearby. Regional buses, including the ones to the Pont du Gard aquaduct, were parked in the back of the station. Inside the station was a bicycle rental store as well as Paul's restaurant, a Starbuck's café, and Relay, an all-purpose store.

 

Training It Back to Le Puy

I was able to get a very cheap train ride back to Le Puy that went through many small towns west of Lyon instead of going through Lyon. The trip offered many scenic views of the mountains and hills. The train was not a full train like the TGV to Nimes, so there was plenty of room to stretch out without having to share a seat. This was the life, I thought, until the train stopped at Genolhac and didn't continue. Track trouble ahead. We were told we'd only be delayed by an hour's wait. However, the reality was that we'd have a three-hour wait.

 

Everyone picked up their belongings and left the train. Some of us wandered over to the café and had a cup of coffee while we waited. I had a chance to sit with a woman, and we spoke French together for half an hour. (She said I did pretty well, which increased my confidence in the language!) The café didn't offer anything but coffee. Fortunately, I had a blueberry muffin at the Nimes train station at 8 a.m. I was due to transfer trains in Langogne with an hour to spare. That would be much lunch break. However, workers on the tracks were not able to make their repairs for three hours instead of their anticipated one hour. So I not only missed my transfer, I missed getting anything to eat. 

After this long and unexpected wait in Genolhac, many of us went back to the train to pick out a seat and relax until it would resume its route. Finally, we moved. I had hoped the train would make up time and I could get on another train that would take me back to Le Puy. I searched the SNCF schedules on my cell phone and found a stop in Langogne where I was supposed to make my transfer. I decided that if I couldn't get a train back to Le Puy on this day, I would stay overnight in a hotel and go on a train in the morning. That sounded like a good plan, however, the conductor advised me to go beyond Langogne to a little town called St. Georges D'Aurac. A taxi would take me to Le Puy, just a 30-minute drive. SNCF would take care of the cost. That sounded good to me. I would later learn from the station master at St. Georges D'Aurac that this happens all the time, and this was the way SNCF takes care of its passengers. So I learned something new about the French transportation system for future reference. 

By this time I thought it would take a long time to get to St. Georges D'Aurac, but was surprised that the stop came up so soon after we had passed Langogne. When we arrived at the station, the conductor wanted me to get off the train quickly so he grabbed my suitcase and escorted me out. The station master called the taxi and told me it would only take 5 minutes for him to arrive. Well, it took 20 minutes, but I wasn't sorry--except for my hunger pains. It was getting to be 3 p.m. and I hadn't had anything to eat since 8 a.m. save for a stick of gum that a young man gave me after he finished translating the conductor's instructions to me into English. He just happened to be there at the right moment to help me twice--and I was soooo grateful to him. It was one of those fabulous serendipitous moments that come with travel, and makes for a good story. Such people are the little angels that the travel gods set out for you to help you get to where you want to go along the way.

During my wait for the taxi, I amused myself with taking photos of this train stop that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. There wasn't any kind of store or café here. Nothing! It was farm country with a lot of dairy cows around who are responsible for giving milk that eventually becomes Auvergne blue cheese, one of my favorites. As the taxi traveled the roads, I couldn't even find many houses! During my taxi ride, the driver and I spoke French, and I learned a few things about the area. We arrived at the train station in Le Puy just in time for me to take a small electric-powered bus to the stop near the International Centre. What great luck! 

I finally arrived home at 4 p.m. The cheap train trip that was only supposed to last 4 hours had taken 8 hours--and I was famished. As we sat and waited on the train tracks in Genolhac, I fantasized about what I would eat when I arrived home--something quick and satisfying. I decided on my go-to for comfort food: pasta with olive oil, garlic powder, and Parmisean Reggiano--and a salad with Cæsar dressing. Mmm-good!!!