NIMES
(30 minutes)
With its Roman amphitheatre (with many large annual events), maison carre, tour magna, and Jardin de la Fontaine. There is a bull-fighting festival at Easter as part of a large festival.
PONT DU GARD
(30 minutes)
The spectacular Roman aquaduct, with an excellent hands-on audio/visual museum under the reception area on the north bank).
UZES
(30 minutes)
The seat of the dukes of Uzes (yes, France still celebrates its dukes; the Fons co-operative wine cave markets its premier wine as ‘Duche de Uzes’). Uzes is full of history and boasts an internationally famous Saturday market.
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SOMMIERES
(20 minutes)
A delightful town, the final home of the novelist, Lawrence Durell, and famed for its large Saturday market and Roman bridge over the river Vidourle.
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Autumn in Fons
Autumn in Fons is a mixture of late summer heat and mild autumnal sun and blue sky.
The swimming pool can normally be used until late September. In October and early November daytimes are usually warm and dry ( temperatures between 13 and 20 degrees centigrade) with cool evenings when guests can enjoy the villa’s log fire, which complements the radiator heating. Most days lunch can be taken out on the covered terrace.
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The villa is situated in the Garrigue (the ridge between the Mediterranean coast and the Cevennes with small oaks and bushy, fragrant plants). It is ideal for walkers, cyclists, or tourists who just want to drive their car, or use the bus or train that leave from the village for the Roman city of Nimes, or Ales to the north or to Saint Jean du Gard (where in 1878 Robert Louis Stevenson completed his 200km walk with a donkey, Modestine, immortalised in his pioneering travelogue, ‘Travels with a Donkey’).
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Walkers have thousands of kilometres of paths to explore, down in the Camargue or up in the Cevennes, or simply along Grand Randonne (GR) 63 which runs past the house.
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Cyclists can enjoy the four cycles provided at the house to explore the many off-road cycle tracks described in the House Diary by previous visitors
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Bird watchers will be enthralled by the autumnal migration of thousands of sea birds down on the Camargue (45 minutes), including thousands of pink flamingos. There are many other species dropping in on our garden or flying overhead looking for prey.
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Naturalists will adore the autumnal berries of the garrigue. The ‘Garrigues’ reference book in our bookcase will amaze you by the sheer variety of wild flowers, butterflies and small animals that abound there. There are usually five or six different varieties of orchids poking up from our lawn.
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Two kilometres from Fons lies the Clos de Gaillard, a large wild park belonging to the city of Nimes. It is rich with wild flowers, birds, butterflies and insects, with information boards on the myriad paths to guide the traveller. A whole new world of wild plants, animals and insects awaits you in the Camargue and higher up the Cevennes mountain range – including, if you are lucky, sighting of the sanglier (wild boar).
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In September the last of the Garrigue village fetes takes place, with their bull-running and dancing and the final competitions of the Course Camarguaise – where man is pitted against bull without aiming to kill it.
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