Romans and Us in Nimes

About 20 years ago, I wrote a novel (unpublished) about Roman times (196 AD) set mostly in France, which was then Gaul. Last year I started rewriting it (after all these years, you’d think I’d come up with a different subject), which meant re-researching and once more getting caught up in Roman history, architecture, art, social customs, and all that. How much easier it was to research with the Internet! I can’t tell you how often I had had to invent geography, food, metalworking, etc., in the early version because our university library didn’t have enough facts.

I soon knew that looking at present-day pictures of Lyon, LeHavre, and Paris did not teach me enough. Even after finishing the rewrite, I needed to check the actual layout of the countryside and what’s left of Roman settlements. A lot of time had passed, 1814 years, but the rivers, mountains, plains and ruins would still be recognizable.

That’s when I called Mary, hoping she’d want to go on a reunion trip and also go along with my ulterior motive of seeing the Roman sites around Lyon, Nimes, and Aix en Provence. She was enthusiastic, so that’s how the trip became a reality. I just realized she still hasn’t read my book. I’ll have to put it on a thumb drive and give it to her. My friend, Elaine, read it, edited it, and likes it, so even though 25 agents have said no, it might not be as bad as all that. And even if it’s never ever published, it was a great experience writing and researching it. Better than sitting around thinking that maybe one day I would. Enough about unpublished novels. On with the blog!

We rode the train to Nimes from Perpignan on the Saturday before Easter, arriving about 6:30 p.m. because our Railpasses didn’t work on the earlier trains. The hotel Concorde in the historic part of the city was short on glamour, but Ralf, the concierge, was pleasant. Right away, I messed up by paying for an extra night at the Corcorde when, actually, we needed to get to Aix en Provence on Monday. By the time I realized this, Ralf had gone and wouldn’t be back for a few days. I left a nice note in French hoping for a refund. It never came.

My first journal entry for Nimes says, “Nimes is nice.” That first evening we walked the narrow, winding streets following our map but still got lost several times. Is it correct to say you are “lost” when you don’t really know where you are going? By the time we came to a square with the right ambience and several open air restaurants, I was desperately hungry and thus irritably impatient. Mary was being so picky about agreeing on which one to eat at that I was [insert euphemism for “ready to strangle her"]. Finally, she bristled and demanded, “You choose.” I quickly selected the one on the left and was satisfied even if she wasn’t.

I loved my pizza and salad. She didn’t love whatever she had. But we both enjoyed the warm evening, and watching people stroll by, check the posted menu, and either come in or move on. Slowly, slowly, that calmed the troubled waters.

Since it was holiday time, families were out with young children, eating even later than we were. We started at about 8, ending at 10, while others were still just beginning their dinners. I especially loved watching the fathers playing enthusiastically with their young children. The children were well-behaved at the tables, presumably because staying out late and eating out were not unusual for them.

The next day, Easter, was for exploring Nimes. It more than met my expectations.

Nimes is great for Roman ruins, having then been an important regional city. The famous temple, Maison Caree (pictured) has been in continual use for one thing or another since it was built in AD 1 or so, being patched up year after year, but never left in ruins. It’s much larger than I thought it would be, and was so crowded we didn’t go in. It was, after all, a holiday weekend.

Nimes is also great for students. The narrow streets are hardly wide enough for two people walking abreast, so you quickly learn to plaster yourself against the walls to avoid being smashed by a student on a motorscooter whipping along the cobblestones. We were told that on regular days it’s not like that; the scooters have rules to obey, but this was a holiday and the police were busy elsewhere.

Where was that? By the large amphitheater setting for the Roman games to be held on Sunday. We realized that’s why we kept running into claques of people dressed like Romans. Nimes takes its heritage seriously.

Sunday morning, we bought tickets for the games, thrilled to be in a Roman coliseum that is much less ruined than most others in the world. Displays outside were fun, including shoes – the picture is of the spiked shoes made by a modern cordonnier and worn by Legionaires over the rocky Roman roads.

Inside, the picture shows Emperor Hadrian’s entry. The games included three captured Christians who had to fight an attacker, plead for their lives to the audience, and then let Hadrian decide. The first one reacted cowardly to his opponent, so we let him be killed. After that, I think the whole audience lost our appetite for brutality so we asked Hadrian to let the next two go free, and he did. They had been braver, and the red-painted wild-haired Celtic one, the favorite, actually subdued his attacker.

The weather, which up till that day had been mild, was hot. We sweltered on our stone seats, shading ourselves with whatever we had, which wasn’t much. It affected our regained good humor. By the end of the day, back at the hotel, we played double solitaire as an antidote to our crabbiness, and then slept well.