The south of France was colonized by the Romans by around 120 BC in order to expand their trading operations, and they set up substantial settlements at Marseille, Narbonne, Orange, Arles, Fréjus, Glanum near St-Rémy, and Nice, with a network of roads linking them.

	Enter a city
	or select a destination
	Select dates
	Arrival: Departure:
	Guests and rooms
	Guests: Rooms:

The Romans were fine town-planners, linking complexes of buildings with straight roads punctuated by decorative fountains, arches and colonnades. They built essentially in the Greek style, and their large, functional buildings were concerned more with strength and solidity than aesthetic. A number of substantial Roman building works survive: in Nîmes you can see the Maison Carrée, the best-preserved Roman temple still standing, and the Temple of Diana, one of just four vaulted Roman temples in Europe. Gateways remain at Autun, Orange, Saintes and Reims , and largely intact amphitheatres can be seen at Nîmes and Arles . The Pont du Gard aqueduct outside Nîmes is still a magnificent and ageless monument of civil engineering, built to carry the town's fresh water over the gorge, and Orange has its massive theatre, with Europe's only intact Roman façade. There are excavated archeological sites at Glanum near St-Rémy, Vienne, Vaison-la-Romaine and Lyon .

Copyright Rough Guides Ltd as trustee for its authors. Published by Rough Guides.
All rights reserved.The Rough Guides name is a trademark of Rough Guides Ltd.