Dreaming of France -- Southern France

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

Yesterday, I had a lovely Skype conversation with my friend Delana who moved to Aix en Provence for a year and never came back to the States. 

She's answering questions about how to transition to France. So we talked about things like when to apply for our Carte de Sejour. I didn't even know that we needed to do that!

Delana suggested we come over in May for a few weeks to feel out the area in Languedoc and decide where we would like to rent an apartment for a few months while looking for a house.

Earl and I both jumped at the chance to visit France this year and immediately started calculating how expensive the trip would be. 

I found an apartment in Nimes for 10 days. Nimes is right on the cusp between Provence and Languedoc, but technically in Languedoc.

 I thought Nimes would be a perfect place to stay so that we could visit Delana and tour Languedoc. That's when I remembered that Earl and I had visited Nimes before, on our bicycle trip through Provence.

We started in Avignon. 

This is me in front of the Pont de Avignon

We rode our bikes 40 miles that first day from Avignon to see the Pont du Gard, the famous Roman aqueduct.

I don't know why, but it surprised me that we could ride our bikes across something that old!

And here's another shot after we had crossed. 

At the end of the day, we arrived in Nimes where we spent the night. Our hotel was located across the street from a Roman amphitheater, and we also toured some Roman gardens. 

As much as we'd love to, we may not get to visit France this spring, but I know that next May we'll definitely be flying across the ocean as we look for a new home in France.

Dreaming of France -- Nîmes

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

On Sunday, The Tour de France ended its stage in Nîmes, which is in the Languedoc-Roussillon department of France. To me though, it's in Provence. When my husband and I rode our bikes from Avignon to Aix en Provence, our first overnight stop was in Nîmes.
Since we rode our bicycles over the same roads that the riders from the Tour de France were riding, we were especially interested to watch.
The Tour stopped in front of the Roman coliseum, or amphitheater, that still remains in Nîmes. I don't know why we didn't get a good picture of it, but here is a post card we brought home.

We stayed in a hotel right across the street from the coliseum. It's called La Lisita and we loved looking out the window to see this amazing Roman structure. Here's a picture of me under an umbrella alongside the coliseum wall with our hotel in the background across the street. No comments on my fashion choices. Remember that it was a biking trip and we only had the clothes we could carry on our bikes.

And we went to see a number of Roman sights, including the Mason Carrée, which is a Roman temple. I think that's what this picture shows. The people in it are not us. They just got in the way of the shot.

The museums and the gardens included a lot of Roman ruins. If you get a chance, include it on your next trip.
Thanks for playing along today, and please visit each other's blogs so  you can get more snippets of France today.
I'm also joining in with Paris in July. Check it out for many good recommendations on French books, movies and lifestyle.