Because it's so well preserved, it is still used for concerts these days. When we visited, it was set up for a Santana concert the following night. Very disappointed we couldn't be there for it!! Wouldn't it be incredible??
We learnt a little more about how the hand symbols to determine whether a gladiator lives or dies, and discovered that Tom had been doing it wrong in Rome and back in Croatia. He may still not be doing it right. I think I'll put that down to the fact that he likes to think himself the gladiator, not the spectator.
They had really informative boards up with information about each of the different types of gladiators.
See? I told you Tom fancies himself as a gladiator.
I don't.
And then we made our way to the dungeons, for a bit more education..
Well, we may not have learnt much, but we definitely had fun!
In more recent non-gladiator times, the arena is used for bull fighting.
Tom made the most of it, of course.
It was comforting to see how close the infirmerie was!
We took one final look at the giant (but not as giant as the Colosseum) amphitheatre before we went back out to explore Nimes some more.
We stumbled across this lovely church.
It had obviously seen a wedding earlier in the day.
My husband is a dork (but a sweet dork).
We moved on towards Nimes' own pantheon, otherwise known as Maison Carrée.
The tickets we'd bought to enter the amphitheatre earlier included admission inside the Maison Carrée to see a little 3D movie.
The glasses were pretty cool.
We emerged blinking into the very bright sunlight after the little movie, and walked towards Nimes' Jardins de la Fontaine (Fountain Gardens), to tick off the rest of the Nimes 'must sees'.
The street leading to the gardens was beautiful. Tree-lined, a canal down the centre, leading to a fountain!
The reflections of the lovely old buildings in the water was lovely.
And there were a few pretty doors to see, just to keep me satisfied.
There were some local oldies playing bocce at the end of the street.
And then we hit the gardens.
We stumbled across a bride...
And then we climbed up a mountain (well it felt like a mountain).
And stumbled across some gorgeous French scenery.
And we found another bride!
We eventually reached our destination, the Tour Magne at the top of the hill.
And since our amphitheatre ticket also included free entry to this, we climbed it.
And we got a very commanding view of the very flat city of Nimes.
We decided to sit up there and relax for a little while.
And then eventually made our way back down into the garden again, admiring the very lounge-suite-like benches along the way.
We strolled past the Temple of Diane in the gardens...
And discovered that it was set up for a free concert later that night.
So we decided to hang around nearby until it was time for the concert.
We found ourselves a comfortable little spot from which to watch the world go by. Some of it was quite entertaining!
As night fell and the concert time drew closer we relocated to a more comfortable seat for a little while...
And then went back to the Temple of Diane, ready for the show.
We complacently patted ourselves on the back for managing to so fortuitously be in the right place at the right time to get a free concert...
And then the concert began.
And we looked at each other.
And waited for the next song to see if it was better.
I don't even know what kind of music to call it. The guy sat there behind his keyboard-ey thing and played weird robotic/computer noises.
Needless to say, it wasn't our style. I did enjoy the contemporary dancer that danced to a few of the songs, but after about six songs we'd had enough. So we carefully snuck out.
And wandered our way back to our hotel.
Saying goodnight to the pantheon... I mean the Maison Carrée...
And the amphitheatre.
Goodbye Nimes!
No comments:
Post a Comment