Nîmes: the Rome of France

With one of the best-preserved Roman amphitheaters in the world and a temple almost intact for two thousand years, Nîmes claims the title of the most Roman city in France.

The center, with the Roman amphitheater among the best preserved in the world, is comfortably explored on foot.

The Nîmes Amphitheater, a first-century Roman amphitheater, remains one of the best-preserved in the world and still hosts bullfights and concerts under its two-thousand-year-old arches.

A short walk away, the Maison Carrée, a nearly perfectly intact Roman temple, remains one of the best-preserved ancient temples in the entire Roman Empire.

Continuing on, you visit the Fountain Gardens, an eighteenth-century park built around a sacred spring already venerated in Roman times.

Toward evening, the denim textile, whose name derives from 'de Nîmes', recalls the city's ancient textile tradition exported to California during the Gold Rush.

Denim takes its very name from Nîmes: 'de Nîmes' became 'denim' when the local cloth was exported and anglicized, later becoming famous through jeans produced in California.

The Maison Carrée directly inspired Thomas Jefferson in designing the Virginia Capitol, demonstrating the lasting influence of Roman architecture on modern Western culture.