Nîmes, France: The French Rome

As Carla and I wander from place to place, we’ve learned that cities can be a little like people. Every now and then, you meet someone and feel an immediate connection. You can’t always explain it, and you certainly can’t manufacture it. Something simply clicks.

Places can work the same way.

Montpellier did that for me. I loved it almost immediately - the streets, the youthful energy, the people, the general feeling of being there. So after reading so many enthusiastic things about nearby Nîmes, I assumed I would probably respond to it in much the same way.

I didn’t.

Nîmes and I simply never quite found our rhythm. That isn’t to say I disliked it. There were certainly attractive parts of the city, and the people were perfectly welcoming. But compared with some of the other French cities and towns we’d been wandering through, I found myself missing those narrow old streets, intimate corners, and little discoveries that usually keep me happily walking for hours.

And that’s okay.

One of the nice things about traveling long enough is that you eventually stop feeling obligated to fall in love with every place someone else tells you is wonderful. Taste is personal.

What Nîmes may lack for me in charm, however, it more than makes up for in something else entirely: history.

If you have even a passing interest in the ancient Roman world, Nîmes is extraordinary. The city became part of the Roman sphere more than two thousand years ago and eventually developed into one of the most important Roman settlements in what is now southern France. Today, its collection of ancient monuments is among the finest anywhere outside Italy.

And the remarkable thing is that these ruins don’t sit isolated somewhere beyond the modern city. They’re part of it.

You can walk down a contemporary French street, turn a corner, and suddenly find yourself standing in front of a Roman temple that has been there for roughly two millennia.

That has a way of rearranging your sense of time.

The most striking example is the Maison Carrée, an exquisitely preserved Roman temple dating from the early first century. Its columns, proportions, and classical facade remain so intact that it hardly seems possible you’re looking at something built when the Roman Empire was still young.

Then there’s the Arena of Nîmes, constructed around the first century CE and still considered one of the best-preserved Roman amphitheaters in the world. What I find especially remarkable is that it remains in use today. Thousands of years after people first gathered there for public spectacles, audiences are still filing through its entrances for concerts and other events.

The entertainment has changed. Thankfully. The building keeps doing its job.

There’s also the Tour Magne, standing above the city on Mont Cavalier. It once formed part of the Roman defensive system surrounding Nîmes and offered expansive views across the surrounding countryside. Climb high enough today and you begin to understand why this particular spot mattered strategically. Long before satellites, surveillance cameras, and Google Maps, being able to see who was approaching was a fairly useful feature.

Nearby is another extraordinary achievement of Roman engineering: the Pont du Gard. The bridge carried the aqueduct that supplied ancient Nîmes with water and remains one of the great surviving monuments of the Roman world. Its scale is impressive enough on its own, but what fascinates me is the precision behind it. Water had to travel for miles across uneven countryside using gravity alone, which meant the Romans had to understand gradients with an accuracy that seems almost unreasonable for people working two thousand years ago.

Apparently, they knew a few things.

We also visited the so-called Temple of Diana, although no one seems entirely sure what the building actually was. Despite the name, scholars believe it may have served another purpose, possibly as part of the larger sanctuary complex surrounding the ancient spring.

I rather like that history occasionally admits, We don’t know. There’s something refreshingly honest about a ruin retaining a little mystery.

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Our favorite place in Nîmes, though, was the Jardins de la Fontaine. Created in the eighteenth century around an ancient sacred spring and Roman remains, the gardens are filled with canals, stone balustrades, statues, paths, and wonderfully formal landscaping. After spending time among all that Roman stone, it was lovely simply to wander beneath the trees.

The gardens are often described as among Europe’s earliest large public parks created specifically for ordinary citizens rather than reserved solely for royalty or aristocracy. That idea appealed to me almost as much as the gardens themselves: beauty intentionally made available for everyone to enjoy.

There’s something else about Nîmes that makes those ancient buildings even more fascinating. The Romans were astonishing engineers. Researchers studying Roman concrete have discovered that some of what earlier observers assumed were imperfections - small chunks of lime scattered throughout the material - may actually have contributed to its remarkable durability. Under certain conditions, these materials can help cracks seal themselves over time.

In other words, the Romans may have been making a kind of self-healing concrete two thousand years ago.

Meanwhile, some modern roads develop potholes before the ribbon-cutting ceremony is over. Progress is occasionally complicated.

Walking through Nîmes, I kept thinking about all the people who had passed these same structures before us. Romans built them. Medieval residents adapted them. Generations incorporated them into an evolving city. And now Carla and I were standing there with an iPhone taking photographs of something that had already survived more history than I can begin to imagine.

That’s humbling.

So no, Nîmes didn’t capture my heart in the way Montpellier did. And I think there’s something useful in admitting that. Travel isn’t a competition to see how many places we can declare magical. Some cities speak directly to us. Others educate us. Some make us want to stay for months, while others make us grateful we came and equally comfortable moving along.

Nîmes belonged mostly to that second category for me.

I may not have fallen in love with the city itself, but standing beneath a Roman temple built two thousand years ago or looking across an amphitheater that still welcomes crowds today is something I won’t soon forget. There’s a lesson in that too.

A place doesn’t necessarily have to charm you to be worth knowing.

Sometimes history is enough.