Guns and Frocks

Loving Delta and the Bannermen since 1987

2008 Long Service Leave

All the cafés round here are full of hot young soldiers!

Friday, 29 February 2008

I just thought I’d mention it.

Colonia Augustus Nemausus

Saturday, 1 March 2008

I arrived in Nîmes yesterday lunchtime.

The hotel was easy to find, but hideously grim and unimpressive. To name and shame: it’s the Hotel de Provence, Nîmes. When I checked in, the concierge apologised about the room, and I said no, I’m sure it will be perfectly alright, but I was horribly wrong. The walls are grimy and the shower overflows. There’s a smell in the corridors, and there’s a continuous grinding sound somewhere on the second floor. There’s only one power point. I got home this evening to find that no one had done the room. Avoid.

The hotel put me in a bad mood, so I went off to look at the town. At first, I was unimpressed. It was like a grim country town in New South Wales: wide streets and shitty Chinese restaurants. Like, say, Guyra, only not as nice. But then I turned a corner, and at the end of the street I saw the Maison Carrée.

A narrow street full of parked cars. Unexpectedly, there is a Roman temple at the end of the street.

And from then on, I started to cheer up. After the Maison Carrée, you turn another corner and there are clothes shops and nice bookshops and trendy cafes with alfresco seating, and a few hundred metres further there’s a giant Roman amphitheatre.

I visited the amphitheatre in the afternoon and took dozens of pictures. They’re all up now. It’s the best-preserved Roman amphitheatre in the world: in fact, it still seats 15 000 for the annual bullfights. I hung around there until it closed and then went off to find somewhere to drink. Most places were full of soldiers, as has already been noted. I wonder why.

This morning, I spent an hour booking my ticket to Rome (overnight, via Paris again), and another hour trying to find a bus to take me to the Pont du Gard, which is a stretch of Roman aqueduct about 20 km from Nîmes. It’s beautiful. It spans a valley covered in what I want to call bushland; three levels of beautifully preserved arches, built in the first century to supply Nîmes with water. The pictures don’t do it justice, of course, but I’ll try and upload more of them tomorrow.

Simple hotel room interior in Nîmes with yellow walls, a small table, and an open closet.Bronze statue of a Roman figure in front of stone steps and cypress trees in the archaeological site at Nîmes.Roman stone archway framing a view of modern buildings in Nîmes, with archaeological remains in the foreground.Side view of an ancient Roman gateway in Nîmes with multiple arches and weathered stone.Inscription on the base of a statue of Antoninus Pius in Nîmes, written in Latin and French.Statue of Antoninus Pius standing on a plinth in a square in Nîmes, surrounded by trees and buildings.The Maison Carrée in Nîmes, a well-preserved Roman temple with Corinthian columns, undergoing partial restoration.Streetscape in Nîmes with pedestrians, shopfronts, parked scooters, and a Banque Chaix branch.Busy café scene in Nîmes with diners sitting outside near the Roman amphitheatre.Exterior view of the Roman amphitheatre in Nîmes, with arched tiers and a mostly empty plaza.Interior corridor of the Roman amphitheatre in Nîmes, with vaulted stone ceiling lit by warm uplights.Seating tiers inside the Roman amphitheatre in Nîmes, viewed from the arena floor under a clear blue sky.Sunlit corridor inside the Roman amphitheatre in Nîmes, with shadows cast through the arches and barred gates.Exterior upper level of the Roman amphitheatre in Nîmes, showing weathered arches, stonework, and a modern guardrail.View from within the Roman amphitheatre in Nîmes, looking out toward a domed civic building with ornate stonework and a clock.Wide view of the Roman amphitheatre in Nîmes from the seating tiers, showing the central arena, surrounding stands, and skyline beyond.Distant view of the Pont du Gard aqueduct stretching across a wooded valley, seen from a rocky foreground with bare trees and benches.View of the Pont du Gard from below, showing a large central arch and upper tiers of the aqueduct framed by trees and a walking path.Angled view of the Pont du Gard showing its three tiers of arches spanning the river, with visitors walking along the lower level.Side view of the full span of the Pont du Gard aqueduct crossing a rocky riverbed, with a clear view of all three tiers of arches.Wide view of the Pont du Gard aqueduct spanning a rocky riverbed, with green grass and limestone boulders in the foreground.Close-up view of the mid-tier arches of the Pont du Gard, seen from below with stone details partially obscured by trees.Elevated view of the Pont du Gard aqueduct from a hillside, with the structure stretching across the wooded valley and river below.View of the Gardon River and rocky riverbank seen through the underside of a stone arch at the Pont du Gard.Wide view of the Pont du Gard aqueduct from a rocky plateau, with the structure framed by forested hills and cloudy sky.Commemorative stone plaque in French embedded in the Pont du Gard, describing its Roman construction and later restoration.Low-angle view of the Pont du Gard from the riverbank, showing its massive stone arches and layered masonry.

Conversations with Mormons

Sunday, 2 March 2008

Yesterday I spent a few hours checking out Roman ruins, and at about three in the afternoon I was wandering the streets when I saw a pair of well-dressed young men ringing a doorbell.

Now, I’ve been in France for just over a week. And everyone here speaks French, apparently.  I’ve had to book hotels in French, and order meals, and buy train tickets. I’ve even explained the merits of the Eee PC to a few curious passersby. But my French is not what it was. I can tell people that the monkey is on the branch without making any mistakes, but otherwise I find myself horribly self-conscious about genders and irregular verb tenses and things. I came top in French in 1A, for God’s sake, I shouldn’t be uncertain about the future tense of faire.

So I was so excited by the prospect of a conversation in English that I went straight up to the young men. The more confident one told me he was from Idaho (bless him!); he had learned French at school and had done some intensive language training before coming to France as a missionary. I told him about my plans, and he was lovely and enthusiastic, as Mormons are. He briefly attempted to hook me up with missionaries in Sydney, but didn’t push it when I told him I wasn’t very religious. I said goodbye and walked away much happier.

The ruins had been great, of course. I went a bit mad with the camera. There was the Maison Carrée, where they show you a cheesy 3D film about the heroes of Nîmes. And then the beautiful Jardins de la Fontaine, where there was once a temple of Augustus and where you can still see the ruins of a temple of Diana. And at the top of the hill is the Tour Magne, a deceptively squat-looking tower from where you can see a panoramic view of the whole town. If you can cope with the scary spiral staircase leading to the top. I even visited the Castellum, which is the cistern at the end of the aqueduct, which used to distribute water all over the colony.

Catching the train to Paris this afternoon, and from there to Rome. I arrive on the morning of the fourth. I’ll catch up with you all then.

The Roman amphitheatre in Nîmes illuminated at night, with a restaurant and traffic lights in the foreground.Close-up view of the Corinthian columns and ornate entablature of the Maison Carrée temple in Nîmes.View from behind the columns of the Maison Carrée looking across the street to residential buildings.Side view of the Maison Carrée temple in Nîmes with scaffolding on both sides.Water fountain spraying in the centre of a park pond surrounded by leafless trees in Nîmes.Two men standing in a formal garden in front of the grand staircase and sculptures in the Jardins de la Fontaine.View of the fountain and sculptures above the arched water channel in the Jardins de la Fontaine.Curving balustrade and ornate urns beside the water in the formal park in Nîmes.The Tour Magne, a Roman tower in Nîmes, standing in sunlight against a bright blue sky.Looking up at the weathered stone surface of the Tour Magne in Nîmes, with visible ancient damage.A tall stone tower in ruins, silhouetted against the early morning sky.A Roman-era stone tower under bright sun, with a small child walking nearby for scale.A ruined watchtower viewed through a dense thicket of trees, set against a clear blue sky.A grand stone staircase flanked by gardens and trees, in a formal park setting.

Lost in Paris II

Monday, 3 March 2008

My trip back to Paris took three hours and was very easy. Three hours of sleeping lightly, listening to Doctor Who audios and looking out the window at picturesque French villages. I was looking forward to sitting elegantly in one of the cafés at the Gare de Lyon, drinking wine and using the free wi-fi that so excited me last time.

We were pulling into the station when I took another look at my Paris–Rome ticket, and it occurred to me that Paris Gare de Lyon and Paris Bercy might be completely different stations. A quick look at the departure board at Gare de Lyon confirmed it: there was no train leaving from there for Rome.

Frantically consulting Google Maps, I discovered that the Gare Bercy was only a mile away, and that it could be reached by following the Rue de Bercy. Even I managed that without getting lost. The station itself was horrid: no cafe, no wi-fi and nowhere to sit. Thank God there was alcohol available.

And so now I’m on the train. A second class couchette was the only thing I could get, which means I’m currently sharing a tiny room with a nice Norwegian family of three and a reticent young Japanese woman. I don’t think there’s enough room for us all to sleep at the same time.  I’m hoping the conductor guy is going to bring our passports back tomorrow morning. And I’m beginning to suspect there will be no food served on this trip.

I’ll upload this post when I arrive in Rome. And I’ll let you know then what kind of state I’m in.

Life on Mars

Tuesday, 4 March 2008

The trip to Rome was not too bad after all. The Norwegian family were nice, and their four-year-old daughter was cute and well behaved. And it turned out that not only was there a dining car in the next carriage, but it was possible for all of us to sleep lying down at the same time. I think I slept well, but I’m pretty tired now, and when I had a lie down in my hotel room earlier on, it felt like I was rocking from side to side. When I asked the Norwegian woman how she had slept, she was evasive and distant, so I suspect that for much of the night I was snoring or farting or both.

We arrived in Rome at about 11, one hour late. I found my hotel easily enough: it’s just near the station. But it is odd. Reception is on the first floor, and the rooms are behind a door on the fifth floor. On the other floors, there are other hotels and pensiones. And they serve breakfast at a café round the corner.

After dumping my stuff, I went on my customary hunt for a cafe or bar with wi-fi. No luck at all. There are internet centres on every corner, full of scary Windows machines infested with toolbars and spyware and shitware. Nothing I’d be prepared to type a password into, and nothing that it’s possible to upload photos from. Some internet centres offer to burn your photos onto a CD, which would be great if it was 1996, but doesn’t help me get my photos safely off my person and onto this blog.

So I uploaded yesterday’s blog entry standing on a street corner using stolen wi-fi. I may have to do the same with this entry. And it’s just possible that there won’t be any new photos here until I return to the present day. See you then.