Les Arènes de Nîmes
Nîmes' Roman amphitheatre is older than the Colosseum and, crucially, you can still sit in the original stone seats — because it never stopped being used. Today it hosts bullfights, concerts and the spectacular Grands Jeux Romains festival that turns the arena back into a gladiatorial circus.
Two thousand years of spectacle
Completed around 70 AD, the Arènes held up to 24,000 spectators arranged by social class — inscriptions on some seats still mark which guild or family owned them. The two-storey elliptical facade with its 60 arched arcades is remarkably intact, giving you a visceral sense of Roman civic ambition.
During the Middle Ages, the arena became a fortified village housing over 700 people — you can still spot traces of medieval walls embedded in the Roman stonework if you know where to look.
How to make the most of your visit
Rent the audio guide (included in the ticket): it is genuinely well-produced and leads you through the vaulted corridors — the vomitoria — where you half-expect a lion to pad around the corner.
If your dates align, the Feria de Nîmes in May and September transforms the whole city, and the Arènes hosts traditional corridas. The Grands Jeux Romains in April features gladiator combat re-enactments that are spectacular and surprisingly historically rigorous.
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