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16 January 2026 - Suisse et France
Long, long ago in a Nebraska far, far away I used to spend winter evenings folding laundry and watching TV. This is how I watched my way through Battlestar Galactica. But many such evenings I would also watch Rammstein's Volkerball, a concert shot in the Roman ampitheater in Nîmes. Since then I have dreamed of visiting the "most Roman city outside Italy". And today I pulled on my sergé de Nîmes (denim jeans, that is) and headed there on a train.
The Zürich morning was shrouded in fog, but the sky cleared up approaching Basel. Which the French call Bâle by the way. As frequenter of this blog will know, I took the A2 DELF exam in November and crushed it so badly that I realized I should have taken the B1. Who knew? So part of my excuse for going to Nîmes is to practice my French. To that end I picked up a Charlie Hebdo in Mulhouse just across the border where I also picked up the TGV. Train Grande Vitesse that is - the train of great speed. Perhaps it has great speed, but sadly the Strasbourg to Montpellier line does not have great internet. Or the timeliness I'm accustomed to in Switzerland. It was already running 15 minutes late to Mulhouse and just got worse from there.
Part of the excitement of my first long train trip in France (previously I've only travelled between Monaco and Nice or Italy by train) is the experience though. Starting in the Haut-Rhin department we're I've run and flown before the train then crossed into the Territoire de Belfort, both a new department and region (Bourgogne-Franche-Comte) for me. It was to be the first of nine new departments today. Although they mostly all looked the same. Fields and rolling hills with tree-lined creeks separating them. It could have been Tennessee. But it was Doubs, Haute-Saône, Jura, Côte-D'Or, and Saône-et-Loire. Pulling into Mâcon it might have been Macon, Georgia except for the lack of loblolly pines amongst the trees. By the time the train reached Lyon, where I spent a few hours this summer, the sun had set and there was not much to see out the windows. Still I entered three more new departments before reaching Nîmes, so I'm counting them.
I checked into my hotel and then set out to explore Nîmes. The lady at the front desk recommended a place for dinner that served the local specialities: Brandade de Morue and Gardiane de Taureau. The first was a fishy dish of catfood I cannot recommend (cheapyly available salted Norwegian cod seems to have warped everyone's cuisine), but the second was a delicious beef stew I definitely can.
Gardiane de Taureau
