Nimes

October 6th

We took the service bus into Nimes today. You always get a different perspective on a place if you take the local bus, not just because it tends to go around the houses and calls in places that you would never dream of going to as a tourist, but also the the fellow passengers are a real social mix. Since I retired I've become aware that I have been adopted as a reluctant member of a new social group - 'day-folk'. You get conscripted by default by simply no longer living a nine to five existence. Its membership is catholic and includes, the elderly, the workless, the retired, the infirm, drug addicts, drug barons, shift workers, yummy mummies, toddlers...starry-eyed new parents; a key gathering place - bus-stops. The bus to Nimes today was interesting as it introduced me to the French version, and we in turn enriched their 'day-people tribe' by neatly slotting in to the 'recently retired wanderers' category evidenced by my attire - striped polo shirt, voluminous khaki shorts and sensible walking shoes.

It's twenty years since we were last in Nimes; the centre remains an alluring mix of Roman remains, medieval streets and neo-classical additions. A lovely place to simply stroll and people watch. During the intervening decades many of the main public spaces have been re-designed and the monuments restored.

Les Arenes, where does preservation end and restoration begin...

Cafe culture

In particular, the Maison Carré - Nimes' almost perfectly preserved Roman temple built during the early years ofthe first century A.D. - now cleaned-up it gleams pure white. Norman Foster's cultural centre built opposite it, which was brand new in 1994, now looks distinctly '80's! I bet it won't be standing in two thousand years time.

 

2010 years old....

We sat between the two buildings mulling over these verities while consuming a couple of very yummy quiches. After lunch we wandered across the to the temple of Diana, another Roman monument, then wended ourselves back to the 'Gare Routier' via the warren of medieval streets in the centre of the old city.

The canals were built in the 1700's to supply the textile industry (de Nimes = Denim)

Neo classical statuary next to the Temple of Diana.

While sitting in Café des Beaux Arts, next to the somewhat dilapidated cathedral, Gill raised the question of 'the look', particularly 'the look' feminin. At what age, Gill pondered, did women acquire this particular aura of self conscious assurance, the ability to occupy a café table with vaguely understated panache? Time for a spot of impromptu amateur social anthropology, for our fellow customers provided a plethora of readily available evidence to explore the question. Take the two women next to us, in their fifties I would guess - though age guessing women of a certain age in France is a hazardous business; coiffure, la mode, le pose, all conspire to render the answer to 'quelle age?' conveniently vague. Whatever the answer, the pair next to us were well practiced in 'the look', especially the older of the two whose vague, laconic gesture, deliberately dishevelled, expensive looking wrap and skin-tight leopard skin leggings seemed to conciously contrast with the way she perched primly on the cafe chair, In actual fact the lady in question may have been Madame DuPont, the butcher's wife, but in her head she was Catherine Deneuve. As such should she be regarded as a triumph for 'Egalité and a minor reversal for Fraternité?

Cafe Life 1

Cafe life 2, (Gill turns heads)

The bus journey back was a bit Clarkson; the driver was admirably assertive or suicidally reckless, depending which side of the Channel you hail from. I just hope I don't meet him coming towards me on one of the nearby narrow, plane tree aisled roads tomorrow.