Nîmes – pronounced Neam.

A bit of background on why we are here.  Our cat is called Nimes. We acquired our cat in 2018 from a family member who had been to Nîmes on a work trip in 2017. Once he got home, the family got a kitten and Nîmes had left such an impression it was decided the kitten would be called Nimes. 

After a late arrival into the city – good ol’ intercity bus links – our wonderful Airbnb hosts rescued us from the bus station and drove us to our home for the week, all the while incessantly chatting to us in charming, broken English. 

An apartment walking distance to everything. Room to spread out, a well stocked kitchen.

Day 1, BK disappeared to a co-working space, the kids and I achieved a supermarket visit to top up on food for the week. 

A comment about French food prices, it’s not cheap aye. You think New Zealand food prices are horrendous, they’re not! It’s been so surprising over here considering how much they grow and how not very far it has to get shipped. Hoping the next few countries are a wee bit easier on the budget! 

Day 2, the kids and I had a ride around the city on a tourist ‘train’ (yes like that one at the mount.) It was good to get some bearings of the city, see what we could explore in the coming days. We then lunched with BK and went to the Nimes “Arena” (a mini Roman-built colosseum). I took some video from my phone for you in which I chat about all things production as it’s used for concerts. (In my previous life I did sound/lighting for events)

Day 3, we decided to day trip out to see a massive aqueduct, Pont du Gard. These day trips seem to be my favourite days, and this day was no exception. A very cheap €1.50 bus for 45 minutes! (You can barely buy a packet of lollies or a nice pastry for that price!)
Such a magnificent structure.
It was used to run water from Uzes to Nimes….downhill because there was no pumps in those days. It took 5 years to build the bridge and along the 50km the water had to run, it only had 17 metres of downhill slope to play with. That’s 34cm per 1 kilometre. Crazy huh! Who knows how they measured that kind of thing back in the day!!??
It was really windy, big gusts coming through the valley but BK decided he was going to risk flying DJI, so you’ll see some aerial footage on Facebook soon! 

The next few days we just milled around, did laundry, walked through some gardens, went to a big mall and shopping complex to get Nimes the cat something from Nîmes, and of course the ever pesky supermarket run. BK made the most of the co-working space and knocked out a few more work days. It was good to slow down, pace ourselves, when you’re on the road for a long time you just can’t tourist all day every day for financial reasons but equally for energy level reasons! 

So that was Nîmes – slow but needed. Busy week ahead, onward we go! 

Till next time,

Claire