St. Remy-de-Provence, Thursday, March 25, 7 p.m. — We have arrived at a charming stone farmhouse/hotel in the small town of St. Remy, near the picturesque Alpilles mountains. We had an amazing day of touring Roman ruins, most spectacularly the Pont du Gard, a 2,000-year-old aquaduct that brought water 31 miles down to the Roman town of Nimes. It was truly lovely, amazingly intact, the aquaduct still visible at the top of the structure. We walked across the bridge on the old pedestrian span and enjoyed the views up and down the river. Despite threatening clouds, we managed the trip without getting wet.

Next we drove to Nimes, home to the serge de Nimes, of Levi-Strauss fame (de-nimes, denim, get it, cool eh?), which caused Rick much stress trying to navigate the narrow roads, but was a great walkable city once we got parked. We had a nice lunch on top of the museum, then saw the “near-perfect-Roman-temple” Maison Carree (on which Thomas Jefferson based the Virginia statehouse) but it was wrapped in construction scaffolding, so a bit disappointing. We walked through the winding, pedestrian-only shopping streets of the central city to the Arena, a truly impressive stadium built at the same time as the Coliseum at Rome in about 100 A.D. It seated thousands of spectators to watch wild animals fight, prisoners put to death by animals and, most famously, gladiator fights. Will was transfixed by the stories of the gladiators. The arena is still used in the spring for bullfighting.

We then drove a short drive to St. Remy. Tomorrow, we plan  to visit the amazing Roman ruins at Glanum a mile down the road and then tour some small towns in the mountains. We also got Gramma Go a gift, because things haven’t been easy with Zeus. Go Gramma Go, Go! We’ll be home a tout a l’heure.