Nîmes, France

In which I choose to celebrate Ferria by watching river jousting instead of bullfights, and somehow stand directly in front of one of the world's great Roman ruins without noticing it.

{Nimes, France}

My first point of business in Nîmes is to buy myself a new pair of sunglasses.

A wide pedestrian boulevard leads from the train station into the center of town, and it culminates in a white-pebbled plaza with a beautiful marble fountain in the center. It is another blazing hot day, and the sun glinting off the street and fountain is so very strong that it is impossible for me to even keep my eyes open, let alone see. Luckily, street vendors are selling anything you could possibly want from stands set up right behind the plaza.

Rap music is pumping from a nearby DJ stand, crowds of people mill about everywhere, and it becomes obvious pretty quickly that this isn’t an ordinary street market. We’ve arrived, inadvertently, during the annual Feria festival. Ferias - feria means “fair” in Spanish - occur all over the south of France during the warm months, but the Feria de Nîmes is the largest. It is a week-long celebration with a Spanish flair: vendors serve paella and sangria along the city’s wide boulevards, and men wear those neck scarfs that seem to be unique to the Basque country - scarves that say: “I could run with the bulls, or indeed fight a bull at any time.” (But first, let me just set down my sangria.) Because that’s what the Feria is really about: bullfighting.