Nimes

We got in to France and decided to head straight for the city of Nimes as it looked like it had some interesting places to see. It was founded by Caesar Augustus so as you can imagine it was jam packed full of history. We haved based ourselves at a camp ground for a couple of days so spent Saturday looking around the old part of town.
These are the things we did.
1. (Anna) had a coffee in the catherdral square, looking like the typical French person, after which we had a quick look at the cathedral

2. We went to the les Halles market which had all kinds of stores. Meat, cheese, veges, flowers, sea food, olives, bread & pasteries. Anna greatly admired the variety of unnameable sea creatures available for eating
3. We stopped in at a number of museums which all seemed to be free today
4. We went to the Roman gladiator arena. It was in the top 20 of the 400 arenas with Rome's Colosseum being the biggest, but these days the Nimes Arena is the best preserved, so it was a real treat to walk around. As well as all the history, the arena is now one of the few places authorised for bull fighting outside of Spain

5. The next thing was the Roman temple built by Caesar Augustus, which was remarkably well preserved and we had lunch right outside, sitting beside some youths with extraordinary mohawkes

6. We went to the park and discovered a huge festival/fair with street performers, rides etc. After a while we escaped to the shade of some trees for a rest

7. On our way to find crepes, we stumbled upon an ear splitting parade of drummers, giant puppet people & paper mache masks. It was impressive to say the least

8. We negotiated the bus system to get back to the van
9. We had a very French dinner of French bread and cheese

The end of a great day. Now it is Dimanche (Sunday) and we've had a relaxing day in the van on our first real wet day. Tomorrow we will head to the French Riviera.