Photo: Krzysztof Golik (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A self-guided audio walking tour of the centre of Nîmes, from the Esplanade to the Tour Magne on Mont Cavalier. It starts at the Fontaine Pradier, whose figure of Nîmes wears a crown of the town's monuments, and goes on to the Arènes, the amphitheatre built at the end of the 1st century AD for more than 20,000 spectators, a fortress and then a quarter of houses until it was cleared in 1809, told from outside, from its galleries and from the tiers of seats. Past the glass-skinned Musée de la Romanité, the Porte de France and the crocodile fountain of the Place du Marché, with the story of the crocodile chained to a palm, it reaches the Maison Carrée, the Roman temple dedicated to Gaius and Lucius Caesar, and Norman Foster's Carré d'Art facing it. Through the old town come the Maison romane, the Place aux Herbes, the Musée du Vieux Nîmes in the former bishop's palace, the cathedral consecrated in 1096 and the Porte d'Auguste on the Via Domitia. It ends with the water: the castellum divisorium where the aqueduct arrived, the Quai and Jardins de la Fontaine, the spring that gave Nîmes its name, the so-called Temple of Diana and the Tour Magne.
20 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 178 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 42 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Esplanade and Fontaine Pradier, Arènes de Nîmes, Arènes Galleries, Arènes Cavea and Arena, Musée de la Romanité, Porte de France, Place du Marché and the Crocodile Fountain.
Maison Carrée, Carré d'Art, Maison romane, Place aux Herbes, Musée du Vieux Nîmes, Cathédrale Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Castor, Porte d'Auguste.
Castellum divisorium, Quai de la Fontaine, Jardins de la Fontaine, Source de la Fontaine, Temple of Diana, Tour Magne.
The Roman amphitheatre built at the end of the 1st century AD for more than 20,000 spectators, later a fortress and a quarter of houses cleared in 1809.
Martial Raysse's fountain of the city's emblem, the crocodile chained to a palm that first appeared on the bronze coin of Nîmes under Augustus.
The Roman temple built under Augustus for Gaius and Lucius Caesar, where 367 holes in the pediment once held the bronze letters of the dedication.
The main eastern gate of Roman Nîmes, dated by inscription to 16 and 15 BC, where the Via Domitia entered the city through four arches.
The round basin where the aqueduct from Uzès ended, its ten holes once holding lead pipes that shared the water out across the city.
The Augustan tower on Mont Cavalier, built around an older tower of the Volcae Arecomici, the high point of the Roman wall.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 20 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 20 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Nîmes — the Roman City, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
20 narration points, including Esplanade and Fontaine Pradier, Musée de la Romanité, Porte de France, Place du Marché and the Crocodile Fountain and Maison Carrée. That is about 20 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1–2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 20 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.