First time visitors to France tend to see Paris and maybe venture out to Versailles, but they often miss some of the best France has to offer. The phrase "the South of France" conjures up visions of sunshine, wonderful beaches (often with topless women sunning), art colonies with bright sunflowers and colorful backgrounds. It also offers pictures of opulence in the form of multi-million-dollar yachts anchored in front of casinos with mythical reputations.

The 12th Century Benedictine Abbey at Saint Gilles du Gard features a Romanesque style of architecture. (Photo by Lois A. Lowe)
But the South of France is even more than that. It's a showcase of history beginning with Roman times, through the early Christian period, the Crusades and on to the development of modern art. The area known as Provence and Languedoc extends from the eastern Italian border on the Mediterranean to the French border with Spain on the west. Included in this area are a number of locations which have been designated as world heritage sites. They have either historic or cultural interest to visitors. On a trip through the region, we spent our precious days touring those sites and learning why they are so important to world history.

Driving through France's Rhone valley, we found Nimes is one of those guide book cities that doesn't contain a lot of bold face entries. We planned to visit the Pont du Gard, about 14 miles from Nimes, and one of the world's most spectacular remnants of Roman engineering skill. We wanted to visit the highlights of Nimes and then move on. We were wrong about Nimes‹it's one of France's treasures, a city that deserves special attention and treatment.

Among other things, we discovered that Nimes has a significant place in American cultural history, rivaling that of Barbie Dolls, rock and roll and Big Macs. And thereby, as they say, hangs a tale. An itinerant Bavarian peddler named Levi Strauss emigrated to America. Searching for a strong, durable and remarkably flexible fabric to clothe the gold miners in California, he discovered the cloth that originated in Nimes. There, it was woven of silk and wool. But Strauss imported quantities made from strong cotton. He began importing it to San Francisco and, in 1860, produced the first pants with the fabric which was de Nimes. That fabric's name was soon shortened to denim, and with the introduction of copper rivets in 1873, Levis were born.

As we entered Nimes, we found the city's front yard to be a garden which has as its centerpiece a canal and a series of Roman-style sculptures. These are the remains of a Roman library, but Nimes' history can be traced back to 700 BC when the first tribes settled there.

The symbol of the city‹one that appears on manhole covers and all city vehicles‹is that of an alligator chained to a palm tree. The symbol commemorated the arrival of Roman troops who had been victorious in the battle of Actium in which Antony and Cleopatra had been defeated. Nimes calls itself "The City with an Accent" and the accent is definitely Roman. The world's most complete Roman Temple, The Maison Carrée, is situated in the heart of the old city of Nimes. It has been in continuous use since it was built in 5 A.D. as a temple and later served as a church, then a warehouse and now as a museum. On display are recently excavated Roman mosaics. The Corinthian columns give the building a very Grecian appearance and impressed Thomas Jefferson enough to cause him to use some of its architectural features in his home at Monticello. Adjacent to this religious structure was the forum dedicated to the adopted son of the Emperor Augustus.

Across from the Maison Carrée is an ultra modern art gallery. Its rooftop restaurant gives an excellent overview of the temple. A couple of blocks away is a Roman arena that's still in use. A performance of the entirely appropriate Verdi opera "Nabucco" was scheduled for the night we were there. Within this arena, 14,000 seats are available. In Roman times, 20,000 people were crowded into the space which also included cisterns, storehouses and barracks. Between the 6th and 19th Centuries, the arena was used as a fortress. Townspeople built homes within the walls to protect themselves from marauding bands. Two pastimes in Nimes are the very popular game of petanque, or boules, and French-style bull fighting. In this sport, the bulls are not killed and, in fact, occasionally become the heroes of the fight. The purpose of the contest requires the bull fighter to remove a rosette from the bull's horns. Bulls who are able to avoid being stripped in this way become "folk heroes" in the Nimes community. The job nobody wants is putting the rosette on the bull in the first place.

One of the most famous attractions in the vicinity of Nimes was designated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as a cultural heritage site in 1985. The Pont du Gard now attracts about 1.5 million tourists every year. It is a three-tiered viaduct, built in 50 AD by order of the Roman Emperor Claudius. In need of a reliable water source for the troops stationed at Nimes, Claudius ordered engineers from Rome to find a way to carry water a total of 50 kilometers (30 miles) from springs at the French town of Uzes to Nimes, then a Roman colony. The engineers complied and, amazingly, the aqueduct was designed to drop only 12 meters (37 feet) over its entire 50 kilometer length.

The aqueduct skirted mountains and passed over rivers. It is at the Gard River that the most impressive remaining segment of the installation can be seen. A National Park has been built with help from the European Union and in 2001 a sparkling new 25,000-square-foot visitors center was opened. There, visitors can view a 23-minute film produced in four languages, which offers a slightly romanticized version of the building of the viaduct. The museum has extensive displays relating to the construction of the viaduct and life during the period when the building took place.

The lower two tiers were completed using "drystone" construction. With this technique, no mortar was used and the stonecutters, most of whom were from Nimes, were able to build this portion of the sluice so well that it has withstood the ravages of two millennia. The top tier of arches was mortared and lined with lead to carry the water without seepage.

Kayakers camp beneath the mammoth arches of the Pont. Children play in the park and visitors are able to picnic on the grounds in the shadow of what is certainly one of man's most impressive engineering feats. Pedestrians stroll across the first tier roadway that once served as a bridge for Roman chariots.

The 12th Century Benedictine Abbey at St. Gilles du Gard is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Nimes. Its architectural style, called Romanesque, marries Roman concepts with those of the Middle Ages. The lower level church, dating from the 11th Century was used as the foundation of the later 12th Century structure. The Abbey served as a stopover point and place of pilgrimage for travelers between Italy, Spain and northern Europe. The patron saint was known for his healing powers and on his feast day, August 24, pilgrims still flock to the church.

One of the saddest episodes in the sordid history of the Crusades began when the Albigensian Crusade was begun in June of 1209. The crusade swirled around St. Gilles and the group known as Cathars who lived in the area. For the Abbey, which had survived invasions by Saracens in the 7th and 8th Centuries and by Hungarians in the 9th Century, the Crusade marked an unfortunate episode in the otherwise brilliant history of the church.

At the Abbey's rear, there are the ruins of a much larger church of St. Gilles. This extension was destroyed during the religious wars of the 16th and 17th Centuries‹wars we know as the 100 Years War. St. Gilles' Abbey was designated a cultural heritage site in 1998 and the UNESCO plaque has been affixed to the magnificently carved stone facade dating from 1180.

From St. Gilles, it seemed logical to visit the nearby walled city of Aigues-Mortes. One of France's national monuments, the wall measures about a mile in circumference. Several thousand people still live inside these walls near the salt marshes of the French area called the Camargue. These marshes provide most of France's salt needs and are the source of the product we know as "sea salt." Another local product, reeds, are grown in the brackish water in the Camargue. Used for roof thatching and for building fences throughout the country, the willowy stalks that are harvested and dried fill field after field. Those stalks are also the source of a product known to virtually every clarinetist, oboist and saxophone player as their instrument's reeds. Aigues-Mortes (which translates as "Dead Water") has an interesting history in connection with the Protestant reformation. The Tower of Constance became a prison for first Catholics, then Calvinists and, finally, Huguenot women. Walking down the 132 steps from the top of the tower to the courtyard, one realizes the isolation that must have been experienced by prisoners held there. At one time, Aigues-Mortes was an important seaport, but silting from the Rhone and the changes in tides have moved the sea several kilometers to the south. From the height of the tower, the Mediterranean is visible in the distance across the flat saline plains.

Distances are short in this region‹it's only 40 kilometers (24 miles) from Nimes to Aigues-Mortes‹but the entire mood changes from the vibrant atmosphere in Nimes to the feeling of isolation one experiences in the drive past rice paddies and salt flats approaching Aigues-Mortes. Yet, within this small area of southern France, history ranges from Roman times through the Crusades, past the French Revolution to the 21st Century‹a history that's filled with myths and facts, with glory and tragedy and with fervor and revolt.

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