The story of this place
Built around 70 AD, the amphitheatre of Nîmes—a Roman colony settled by veterans of Egypt's conquest—seated some 24,000 spectators across 34 tiers to watch gladiatorial combats and animal hunts. Its two-storey façade of 60 arches is so intact that it is considered the best-preserved Roman arena anywhere. After Rome fell, the Visigoths turned it into a fortress; by the Middle Ages an entire slum of some 700 people crammed inside, homes and even chapels built between its arches, until the buildings were cleared in the early 1800s. Restored, it now stages bullfights and concerts—still serving the purpose its builders intended nearly two millennia on.