Devin's Travels: Narbonne and Nimes

We finally got to Narbonne in the early afternoon and went straight to my cousin's apartment. We spent a little bit of time at the apartment while we unloaded the car and said hello to everyone but then we decided to go out and explore the town for a bit. We walked to downtown where we were pleased to find that all of the attractions were open free of charge to the public so we went to the city hall where we first toured through a nice art gallery before heading up to the roof. We enjoyed the views over the city from the roof of city hall for a while before making our way back down to the street. Outside again we continued to wander around the city for a bit and went into a church where we enjoyed a few minutes of a free concert before leaving to make our way back home. When we reached the apartment Lianne and I left everyone to continue going for a short walk along the canal while everyone else had to go get dinner started. When Lianne and I returned back to the apartment we spent the rest of the evening enjoying a few drinks, a delicious dinner and just spent the rest of the time relaxing there.

The next morning we got up and took our time getting ready for the day out, there are lots of chores to do when you need to look after a little boy. Unfortunately Phillipe had to go away on a 3 week course so we wouldn't get a chance to see him again and Claudine had to work all day so it was just Sheila, Christian, Alex, Lianne and myself for the day. After lunch we got moving and made our way out to a hiking area just off the coast where Lianne and I went for a slightly longer hike while Sheila and Christian made a rock collection with Alex on a shorter one. At the end of the hike we all met back up near a pretty lake and eventually made our way back to the car. After the hike we drove along the coast for a bit and saw some nice stretches of beach where Alex would sometimes come play although by this point it started to rain so instead of staying long we just slowly made our way back to the apartment in Narbonne. That evening Claudine returned home and again we spent the evening enjoying another delicious dinner and playing a few card games once Alex had gone to bed.

The following morning was our last in Narbonne and after saying good bye to Claudine we enjoyed our breakfast and got ready to set off for the day. Once we were all set we piled into the car made our way up the coast towards Montpellier. We made our way to Montpellier and then out to a small summer tourist town right on the coast where we found a nice restaurant pretty much right on the waterfront to have lunch in. After lunch we proceeded to make our way back to the car where we continued our trip up towards Nimes. On the way to Nimes we stopped off at Aigues Mortes which is small city that has extremely well preserved city walls. We spent an hour or wandering around the small streets within the city walls enjoying all of the shops, churches and ambiance of the picturesque city. After a bit of wandering around here we made our way back to the car and finished our journey to Nimes. We eventually found the hostel we booked in Nimes thanks to Christian's GPS and here Lianne and I said goodbye to Sheila, Christian, and Alex as they had to return to Narbonne that night. We had arrived at the hostel around 5pm and so the rest of the night was spent walking to the nearest grocery store to buy dinner supplies and then we spent the rest of the time at our hostel enjoying our dinner and some drinks before heading to bed.

The next day was our one full day to explore Nimes and the surrouding area so we got up really early and planned on catching a bus out to the Pont du Gard. However when we got to the bus station we couldn't find the bus that would take us out there and instead had to change our plans by exploring the city sights before catching a later bus out to the Pont du Gard. So we started off the day by visiting the Maison Carree an extremely well preserved rectangular Roman temple which is now home to an archive. From the Maison Carree we wandered to the Jardins de la Fontaine which is a nice area full of fountains at the base of a big park. Climbing up through the park we emerged at the Tour Magne, a Roman watchtower built at the highest point in Nimes and still in pretty good shape. After seeing the Tour Magne we made our way back down to Les Arenes, an extremely well preserved second century Roman Amphitheatre which used to hold gladiator fights and now has bull fights. In Les Arenes we got a great audio guide that provided some interesting stories about the different gladiators and audience that would come to watch the gladiators fight. By this time we were able to return to the bus station where we found the bus that would take us out to the Pont du Gard and eventually made our way out there. The Pont du Gard is a 275 meter long aqueduct built by Emperor Augustus' son-in-law Agrippa around 19 BC. We spent several hours wandering around the area and admiring the 49 meter high aqueduct over the Gard River. The aqueduct was absolutely amazing and we admired the amount of work the Romans went through to get fresh water to Nimes and how well they're construction has stood up over the past 2000 years. Once we decided to leave the Pont du Gard we found out we had to walk nearly 3km to a nearby city in order to catch a bus back to Nimes so we did this and eventually got back to the city. Back in Nimes we spent the rest of the evening running a few errands before making our way back to the hostel where we enjoyed another night of our home cooked dinner out in the hastel garden before heading to bed.

The following morning we woke up and made our way down to the train station where we quickly boarded a high speed train that would take us up to Dijon, our next destination.