Photo : Culturespaces/C.Recoura / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Tour Magne à Nîmes
The Tour Magne is a Gallo-Roman monument that dominates Nîmes from Mont Cavalier, above the Jardins de la Fontaine. It is the most imposing remnant of the city's long Roman wall.
It is a pre-Roman building transformed in the time of Augustus: an irregular octagonal base wraps an older dry-stone tower. About 36 metres high in Roman times, it now measures 32.50. A 70-metre ramp once led to a wall-walk, and an interior staircase served the terrace. Already hollowed out in the sixteenth century, it has been listed as a historic monument since 1840.
You reach the top by a staircase of about 140 steps; the climb offers a wide panorama over Nîmes and its surroundings. The site is run with the Arènes and the Maison Carrée, and is not accessible to people with reduced mobility.
