I distinctly remember telling you I went to Nîmes for a few days, I just forgot to upload the scans of the film I took. Previously, although I've been told it's a great city it's only ever meant one thing to me, namely Radiohead. Twice actually. Sigh.
We were staying in an bizarre 80s villa of pale blue and beige florals, feasting on crisps and white wine in bed while watching The Wild Thornberrys on youtube. There was an incident involving dried lotus pods but it will take too long to tell. It was very funny though. While Milla did her exams I had a blissful time wandering the streets, stopping regularly for tea in the sunny and leafy cafés, to read the map, jot down notes and get hopelessly and utterly lost. I went to the Carré d'Art, but much to my annoyance I wasn't allowed to take photographs of the exhibition, which was a crying shame. Choreographies Suspendues was a superb collection of work by contemporary Vietnamese artists. Nguyen Thai Tuan's paintings were so moving, charged with sadness and loneliness and I loved Lena Bui's drawings. Well, at least I can show you Norman Foster's building which is nothing to be sniffed at.
Directly opposite Carré d'Art is the Roman Maison Carré
In fact, if you ever wondered what have the Romans done for us? Nîmes is your go-to place. Personally I'd rather hang with the Ancient Greeks and their love of art, music and Bacchanalian feasting, I can't be doing with that self-agrandising, slave-abusing, over-inflated egomaniac Augustus Caesar but even so...
The ancient Arena and inside the Temple of Diana a gigantic pin d'alep leaning 45° after centuries of wind battering...
Beautiful public gardens...
...and quite the most weird Natural History museum I've ever seen. Like a 19th century wunderkammer of skeletons, very badly stuffed and stitched animals, things in pickle jars and test tubes, dioramas that convince no-one, ethnological trophies and the relics of slavery. And I have to say, the funkiest of smells. I mean a really stomach lurching formaldehyde and decaying leather cocktail. But it was worth it just to see it all rammed in there, with the original little handwritten labels behind old chipped wood and dirty glass cabinets, in all it's horrifying and intriguing glory.
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