Trip to Nîmes

Finally, something to write home about. Since my last post, we've been doing nothing much, nothing exciting anyway. But the day before yesterday, Karen and I took the train to Nîmes, about 35 minutes east of here. It was a good day, about which more in a moment.

The rest of the time since Pat and Sue left ten days ago, we've kept active with walks around the city, including some fairly long ones. One day we walked through the Beaux Arts district. It confirmed our impressions from the first time we wandered into this neighbourhood: it's not that interesting, and it's a mystery how it gets its name as there is no sign of much art activity, beau or otherwise.

Beaux Arts District, street art and cheeky young passerby

Another day, or perhaps it was the same day - they tend to run together at this point - we did a cemetery tour. I had hoped the cemeteries might at least be visually interesting, and possibly with some historical intrigue too. But both the small Protestant cemetery not far from our place, and the much larger main burial ground further out of the centre date from the 19th century. Where are the older grave yards?

These were certainly different from cemeteries at home, with stone family sarcophagi in tightly packed rows instead of individual plots with gravestones. Most just looked like tombs with crosses or small statues, but a few were elaborate carved stone buildings, including one that looked like a miniature cathedral. Inside was a carved tableau of the dead man lying in state, with his wife and daughter standing looking down at him. I think he was a doctor, one with a very inflated idea of himself from the looks of it. A more imaginative photographer might have been able to make something of this, but not me, alas.

The only grave of historical interest, and that only slight, was the final resting place of Queen Elena of Italy, Elena of Montenegro. She reigned from  1900 to 1946, when her husband, Victor Emmanuel III - he who colluded with Mussolini - abdicated in favour of their son Umberto (who lasted about a month before the Italian monarchy was abolished.) Why was she buried in Montpellier? No idea. And oddly, I haven't been interested enough to find out. The grave site wasn't very distinguished either. There are some WWI dead buried here as well, including a few poor Belgian soldiers who had died far from home.

One day we went to the new photo exhibit at the Pavillion Popular, La Vie en Kodak. The Pavillion Popular is a small public gallery in the Esplanade that shows only photo art. We saw a very good retrospective of Aaron Siskind there soon after we arrived. This one was about a long-running Kodak advertising and promotion campaign, a series of mural-size panoramic shots of American scenes taken between the late 1950s and early 1970s and mounted in Grand Central Station in New York. The works on show here are much smaller copies.

Some, but not many, were shot by top photographers. They are all highly staged, lit like movie sets, and totally artificial. The exhibit verbiage pushes their sociological interest, the  idea that these are icons of the American Dream - more like the great American Lie, I'd say. Interesting, though, that starting in the late 1960s, there are black people in many of the scenes, always very glossy, middle class-looking Sidney Poitier clones, and usually a little separate from the white figures in the scene.

It's hard to imagine a Canadian gallery mounting such an exhibit. I can only think that the taste for this kind of stuff in France is a little like the appetite for American cornball comedy of the 1950s and 1960s, especially Jerry Lewis, who a previous generation of French unaccountably adored.

Karen was down with a migraine another day. I went out for a couple of hours to another photo show, a festival, called Boutographies. There are a few venues, but the one I went to is the main one, in a School of Pharmacy building in the Ecusson, a facility called La Panacée. It has been gorgeously renovated as a display and public meeting space. There were exhibits of work by a number of young photographers. The best of the bunch to my eye was a Japanese-German guy, Heiko Tiemann. He was showing lovely, poignant large-scale portraits of troubled children taken at a  home for kids suffering from Asperger Syndrome and learning disabilities.

(c) Heiko Tiemann

I also did some photographing of my own. The big news in Montpellier is that spring is in full flower. The redbuds and wisteria in particular are glorious, and everywhere.

Eglise Saint-Roch (no, not a redbud or a wisteria)

The other big news is that the fountains are finally on. I noticed the ones in the Esplanade while out for a morning run one day, and then in the afternoon, Karen and I went exploring down to Antigone and found the fountains there were on as well, including the fountain of the three swimmers. We've been kvetching since we came about how all the fountains were dry. No doubt it's a money-saving measure by the city - it certainly can't be worry that the pipes will freeze. In any case, they're a very welcome sight, and sound.

Antigone

We planned the Nîmes trip well ahead and bought rail tickets online - just over €30 return for both of us. We set out a little before nine, caught a 9:15 train and were in Nîmes well before ten. The city is mainly known for its Roman monuments. This is one reason we hesitated so long before deciding to go: we're neither of us big on classical ruins. But the Nîmes monuments are fabulous. They include an intact arena and temple, both dating from the first century AD, and among the best preserved anywhere, and a another temple and a city wall tower in ruins.

Nîmes, Arena

Nîmes, Maison Carré (Square House)

The day started with a visit to the city's other main attraction, the Jardin de la Fontaine, which encompasses the Roman ruins. It's an absolutely gorgeous park with a network of canals - originally built to regulate the water supply for the cloth dyeing industry in the 17th century - and terraced hillsides, lawns and walkways. At the top is the Tour Magne, one of the only remaining remnants of the original Roman city wall.

Nîmes, Jardin de la Fontaine

We paid €11.70 each for a ticket that gave us entry to the Tour, the arena and the Maison Carré, the intact temple. It's pretty decent value, although too much of what you're paying for is "media" - a movie at the temple, an audio guide at the arena. At the Tour Magne, all you can do is read the placcards about the history of the place and climb to the top and look out across the city. It's a wide panoramic view, to be sure, but not especially interesting or pretty. The Nîmes skyline, with a few exceptions, is flat and featureless.

Nîmes, Tour Magne

Nîmes, Jardin de la Fontaine

The temple, called the Temple of Diana - although there is apparently no real evidence it was devoted to the goddess - is down below, near the ancient spring that gives the park its name. It's at least untouched, largely unrestored, and free to enter, but there isn't much to it. I was intrigued by the historical grafitti on the exposed columns, some dating to the early 18th century. We spent close to two hours in the park.

Nîmes, Temple of Diana

The next order of business was lunch. We walked back towards the arena and dove into the small streets of the Ecusson - yes, they call their historical centre the Ecusson, just like in Montpellier, and for the same reason: its shape, like a heraldic escutcheon, when viewed from above. We found a relatively inexpensive little place and had a formule lunch: starter plus plat (chevre salad starters, steak pour moi, Thai chicken for Karen) for a total of €32 plus a modest tip. Not the best meal we've had here by a long shot, but pretty decent value.

The Maison Carré, which we visited next, is a jewel, an absolutely ravishing building. I don't know why I found it so - something do with the proportions and the beautiful golden stone glowing in the sunlight - but I was bowled over. You go into the Maison - into a much later concrete-looking structure inside the original temple columns - only to watch a cheesy movie about the history of the Roman period in the city. It is kind of fun, and the production values are high enough. But as Karen said, "It was made with teenage boys in mind." It mostly focuses on the early non-Roman natives who allied themselves with the Romans against their marauding cousins in the northern part of Gaul. Lots of battle scenes, the joyful homecoming (with the protagonists oddly unaged after 25 years), etc. Twenty minutes.

Never mind, the real point is the outside of the building. Just look at the pictures and you'll get the idea.

Nîmes, Maison Carré (Square House)

The last major stop was the arena, also amazingly well preserved and very atmospheric. Like the one in Arles, it has modern bleacher seating built over the original stone bleachers. It's still used for bullfights and other entertainments, including a re-enactment of gladiatorial games running in a couple of weeks to kick off the summer tourist season. I don't think Karen was terribly impressed. It was too much like other Roman arenas we'd visited in the past, she felt. Fair comment. I enjoyed it, though.

Nîmes, Arena

The audio guide was good, and certainly detailed enough. Much of the commentary was about the gladiatorial combats for which the arena was originally built. What an appallingly barbaric entertainment! Even during the heyday of this arena, it was awful enough - with mass public executions of prisoners and martyrdoms of Christians, sometimes ripped apart by wild animals. But at least there were rules, and the competitors were mainly professionals. In the waning years of the empire, it was just an unrelenting bloodbath, with conscripted fighters who had no choice but to kill or be killed. And we think bullfights are barbaric!

With what was left of our time, we went in search of the cathedral, which when found, turned out to be small and singularly unimpressive. We sat in the park in the central square between the train station and the arena for awhile, then caught our train home.

Yesterday was a down day. Today, we were supposed to take the bus to Pézanas, a pretty little town between here and Béziers to the west. The trip was aborted after a comedy of senior-moment errors.

First, Karen forgot to take a gravol, or bring them or her migraine pills with her. After our bus excursion to Saint-Guillhem-le-desert, I was not prepared to take the chance on her being okay without them, so I ran back to get the pills and met her at the tram stop with just enough time. At that point, however, I realized I'd left my wallet at home. That's the first time I've done that in a very long time. So we'll go tomorrow.

It'll be something to write about in my next blog, which will be the last from Montpellier. We only have a week left here.