Spring, Solstice, and the City of Nimes

Panorama of the city of Nimes, seen from the upper garden.

Where have we been since our return from Norway at the end of March? Why, right here in Montpellier! We've been watching the winter warm into spring; and now summer is overtaking spring: the trees off our balcony are fully leaved out, blocking our view of our neighbors (which is perfectly fine), and, more importantly, blocking the increasingly harsh afternoon sun.

Meanwhile, we have been making plans... travel plans, of course. We leave for our summer getaway in two weeks; we'll be in Brittany, in the now-familiar city of Vannes for a month. After that, for my birthday weekend (mid-August), we'll spend a few nights at the western end of the Loire Valley.

     What else has been happening in Montpellier?

June 21st, the summer solstice, marks the first day of summer, the day when the sun spends more time in the sky than any other day—in the Northern hemisphere, anyway.

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An appreciative crowd waits for more music...

Every town and village in France does something to celebrate the solstice through music. The extent of the celebration depends, of course, on the size of the town. And over the years we've seen many different expressions of this féte!

In years past on the 21st we've been in smaller towns that had low-key but satisfying events. There might be a choral group wandering the streets in costume; a stage in the main plaza with local musicians playing throughout the evening; an orchestral group in a church.

Jazz in full swing.

Here in Montpellier we get all of that, and much too much more. As the evening wears on the narrow streets become all but impossible with people out to celebrate. And far too much of the celebration here consists of DJs behind a stack of speakers playing music pre-recorded by someone else. 

                   A video of a small part of the Fete de la Musique in Montpellier: a jazz band on the newly-refurbished esplanade, and a rock group gets an unexpected interruption...

But there's always a few gems; the trick is to find them (before getting totally burned out!). Early on we found a great jazz trio in the newly-opened esplanade. They played until dark (which is nearly 10PM here, longest day of the year and all). We wandered through the city after that, watching the new fountain with its illuminated water jets. But the crowds got thicker and thicker, and the folks more raucous. We slowly made our way back home. While we live only about a 20-minute walk from the center, it is in a more suburban area, and things tend to be quiet. (There was a neighbor who had a low-key yard party that wrapped up around 5AM... but they were not so loud!).

We all got our first view of the new fountains; the opera house is in the distance.

It was a satisfying evening. We got a taste of the intensity of the city, with an easy walk back to our quiet apartment. 

While we are planning a long escape from the city this summer, we've been pining to get out of town, even for a short while. So, Sunday we went on a day trip: a 20-minute train ride to the city of Nimes. The station here in Montpellier is only a 15-minute walk from our apartment, making it an easy, no-fuss trip.

Unfortunately, we got a notice the train would be an hour late! So much for an early start... Fortunately, there was an earlier train. In the end, by 10 AM we were making the pleasant walk from the station in Nimes to the old city, the downtown core.

This modern bronze statue of a matador, with the 1st century Roman amphitheater in the background,
 shows the ancient link between the south of France and Spain. (And, yes, bullfights were--and still are--held in Nimes!)

And what's the point of a matador without a bull? A modern sculpture with the cathedral spire in the background.

While Nimes, as a settlement, got its start in the Bronze Age (1000 BCE), it became more significant with the arrival of the Romans in the 1st century BCE. Today it is considered the most Roman city outside of Rome. It has, of course, an arena (think Roman Colosseum, but smaller), which is one of the best preserved still in existence. (Although we didn't visit it on this trip; we'd been there a few years before and, honestly? it probably hasn't changed much since then!)

Of course the Romans were neither the beginning nor the end of Nimes. It’s a small town but has a lot of history packed into it.

By the end of the 17th century Nimes was known for its tough, rugged cloth (developed for the use of shepherds in the nearby mountains of the  Cévennes). This cloth was called "serge," and since it came from Nimes, it was known as "serge de Nimes." Which was eventually abbreviated to "de Nimes," or, now, denim.

The (very slightly) famous crocodile fountain in Nimes.
Why is the crocodile a symbol of Nimes? Possibly due to the Rome--Egypt connection...??

After stopping at a cafe for a late-morning pick-me-up we wandered through the old town towards Les Jardins de la Fontaine, the fountain gardens and their associated water works.

Gates opening on to the Jardins de la Fontaine.

Built around a spring sacred to the Gauls, the Celtic tribes living here before the Romans, the gardens were enlarged and given their classic French look in the 18th and 19th centuries. Today they are a centerpiece of the city, and the entry to the park spreading up the hill behind the springs.

Site of the sacred spring, the origin of the settlement that became Nimes.
The Temple of Diana can be seen in the background on the right.

The Roman-era Temple of Diana.

A lily pond found in the upper garden...

...with some gorgeous water lilies!

It was a spectacular day, and we very much enjoyed our walk up into the park with its panoramas of the city and countryside beyond. But the wind picked up in the afternoon and it became increasingly unpleasant: the heat and glare of the bright sun, the dust and annoyance of the gusty wind. So we took refuge in the new museum, highlighting the origins of Nimes.

A canal leading from the Les Jardins de la Fontaine.
(Wait... is that fountain spray in the form of a Fleur-de-Lys?) 

While much of the display space is appropriately devoted to the Roman period, we were surprised to see a special exhibit on Achilles, the warrior whose exploits in the Trojan war are noted in the Iliad. That was long, long before the Romans!

Entry to the Achilles exhibit was through this illusion of coming ashore at Troy.

The afternoon wore on, we reached "museum saturation," and made our way back to the station to catch the train home (which was only 10 minutes late!).

Overall it was an easy, very satisfying day.

What's next? Well, we will be going to Brittany in two weeks, so there's that.

(It won't be our first time in Brittany; here's a blog about our last trip there.)

The Montpellier train station at night, seen as we were walking home from the Fête de la Musique.