Welcome to Languedoc's Roman city. Nimes boasts a completely intact 4th-century BC Roman temple and a perfectly preserved Roman Amphitheatre in its centre. Here you will walk the streets and see the sights that were even used as settings for the Oscar-awarded film Gladiator, all during our stroll across its car-free zone, charm oozing city centre.
This jewel was first known as Nemausus, as the Roman Empire called it. Nimes is also the birthplace of a fashion icon: denim, which originally meant “de Nîmes”, or “from Nîmes”. This type of cloth was exported to the US during the early 19th century for the production of ship sails, tarps and workman's trousers. Then Levi Strauss, a Bavarian immigrant, used it in 1870 to make trousers for the new frontier of the Wild West. Made in Genoa, where the name “jeans” comes from, with “de Nimes” cloth. Next time you put on your jeans, you will remember Nimes and the city tour that took you for a walk through a charming little French town drenched in history.