Day 24: Nîmes

Something strange has happened. Something very strange indeed, and I can’t explain it.

When I got dressed this morning in my favourite jeans and we went out walking to find the bus stop, my jeans were loose. Not falling down around my knees loose, but loose enough to be annoying.

Loose enough that I needed to tighten my belt an extra notch.

Why is this strange?

Well, if you were to go back and count the number of times that I’ve mentioned the words boulangerie , or croissant, or baguette (… and please don’t do that, by the way …) I suspect that I have eaten enough to cause my GP some serious concern.

And yet my jeans are loose.

I can’t really explain that except to suggest that the 15,000-20,000 steps that I (and we) are doing most days is having more of an effect than all of those baguettes and croissants that I have eaten.

I’ve mentioned previously that it appears to be a national pastime here in regional France to walk around with a fresh, warm baguette in your hand. And why wouldn’t you? They are cheap (about €1.10 each), and so, so good.

And when you think that there is a boulangerie in every township you travel through, it is hardly surprising.

Remember yesterday, we stopped at a boulangerie in the middle of nowhere and bought lunch at some time after 1.00pm? The baker (if that’s what he is called) was in the process of making more baguettes. They bake them all day long, and often don’t close until 7.00pm when they stop selling them.

Sure, you can buy them in the local Monoprix or E.Leclerc. They are a bit cheaper, but mass produced and nowhere near as good.

I’m seriously going to have to find a French bakery (boulangerie) when we get back home. Seriously.

So today – Saturday – we had a walking tour with Bastian.

To be completely honest, we’d forgotten about it, but when we got a reminder of the time and place, we made plans.

Figured out how to get to the starting place in town. Bus was our most likely option.

Wouldn’t it be nice if every township in France with a bus service used the same system. Lyon uses TCL. Nîmes uses Tango.

So we had breakfast and headed out. The temperature was cool (9 degrees that felt like 7 degrees), so we packed scarves and jackets and asked Google Maps to take us to the bus stop, about a 4 minute walk away. It was also forecast to be windy.

Once again, I have no sense of direction here. The streets are all narrow and just seem to go in every direction. I feel like we should be heading one way, and Google Maps says to go a different way.

But we got to the bus stop and the bus pulled in, right on schedule. The number 9 bus.

We got on, and I gave the lady bus driver my best smile and said “Je ne parlez pas Français” (I don’t speak French). I then showed her my preprepared Google Translate screen saying I wanted 2 all day bus tickets, please.

Transaction completed, and we were on our way.

You know how I have been saying how scary it is driving down these narrow streets in Claude, and trying not to hit anything? The lady bus driver did it in a bus. Same streets, but in a bus. And I’m pretty sure that it was a banana bus.

She must have nerves of steel.

Everything is close here in Nîmes. We only went 3 stops and we were in the city.

We were about 45 minutes early, so we poked around, took a few photos, and got a coffee to sustain us … and warm us up.

Bastian turned up right on time, along with a young Italian guy who went to school in France, so was fluent in Italian, French and English.

Don’t you just hate a show-off?

The final couple turned up – John and Grace from Oregan (USA) – so that made Bastian plus 5 of us. John and Grace had just retired, so were about the same age as us.

Experience with these “free” Get Your Guide walking tours is mixed. I say “free” because you pay what you think it is worth. Many of the guides we have had previously look like they shop at a 2nd hand clothes shop and sleep on the street. And consequently we have probably over-donated to them because we feel sorry for them, not because they did a great job.

But Bastian was the best that we have ever had. He was friendly (shook hand all around and asked us to introduce ourselves), well dressed, fluent in English, and addressed us all as “my friends”.

His octagonal glasses frames were a bit weird, but who am I to judge.

He was interesting, engaging and happy to answer questions. Probably being in a small group helped too, because some groups have been up to 20 people.

He showed us lots of interesting monuments around the city and explained the significance of each. He took us through quirky, narrow streets and showed us all sorts of interesting things.

He took us to the food markets, and showed us all of the best things to buy for lunch.

He also showed us a shop that sells a blue fabric that was invented in Nîmes. Denim.

He explained that the word denim is a joining of “de Nîmes” (of Nîmes). BTW I checked on Wikipedia, and it was confirmed. If you can’t trust Wikipedia, who can you trust?

He explained about the aquaduct, and the original water source in Nîmes.

It was a really informative tour and we gave him an extra tip 🙂

By the time that the tour was over (12.00pm), we were getting hungry so we headed back to the markets to buy some of the things that he suggested.

These little pies that are stuffed with fish and octopus. Plus something called “brandade” which is like a dip, but made of poached fish (cod) and oil, and mixed with milk and garlic, which we ate on a fresh baguette.

We also found some “pomme beignets” which is like a pineapple fritter but made with apple (pomme) and covered with sugar.

We found a park bench in one of the town squares, and ate our lunch.

Do you remember I said that the forecast was windy? It was almost cyclonic, and the wind must have been blowing straight from the artic circle – it was freezing.

And when I say that the wind was almost cyclonic, I’m not kidding.

Just near us when we were eating lunch, there was a toy shop with a stand of bikes and toys on display outside the shop. It blew over.

There was also a restaurant with outdoor tables and chairs, and we watched (with some amusement) as the wind was blowing tables and chairs over, while the waiter was frantically trying to reset them all back up again.

In the end he just stacked and chained them together so that they wouldn’t all blow away.

The other thing that we really wanted to see was the arena. It is like the Colosseum but smaller, and built in the same style. And built in the 1st century.

Of interest, while it is an ancient Roman monument, it is still used today for various events including singers such as Elton John.

While we were there, they were setting it up for an upcoming tennis tournament.

I’m not going to try to explain it … it was simply enormous. Look at the photos.

We were hoping that there might have been some executions planned for today, or even some people being fed to the lions … but there was nothing scheduled 🙁

We spent an hour or so doing a self-guided tour of the arena.

When we were up at the very top level, we were genuinely concerned that the wind was going to blow us off, so we headed back down and finished the tour.

WH&S was clearly not a priority 2000 years ago. But then I guess when you watch gladiators fight each other to the death, and feed Christians to the lions, losing a few invited guests over the edge probably isn’t too much of an issue.

We’d had a great day looking around Nîmes, but by 3.00pm we were done and ready to head back to the apartment.

It was cold and very windy, and becoming unpleasant.

We found a Monoprix and bought some stuff for dinner, then found a bus that dropped us off near home, and had a quiet afternoon/night in.

Dinner and the last episode of Reacher, and we are ready for bed. Another 15,000 steps today.

Tomorrow we pack up, collect Claude, and ask Joséphine to take us to Aix-en-Provence. This is a little place that I absolutely insisted that we stay in on this trip.

We will make a couple of stops on the way at other places that ChatGPT says we really must see.

Three nights in Aix, 4 nights in Nice, and then we are heading into Italy to buzz around Tuscany for a while. I’m going to have to learn how to say “I don’t speak Italian …:

Ciao

#Europe2025