Trevor Huxham

It’s no secret on this blog that I’m a big fan of Roman ruins —see my posts on the aqueduct of Segovia , the lost city of Pompeii , and the amphitheater of Nîmes , just to name a few. So it was only natural for me and my traveling friend Melissa to make a daytrip last year from Avignon in southern France  to one of the most emblematic of all French monuments: the Pont du Gard.  This Roman site’s elegant name (pronounced “pon dew gahr” [pɔ̃ dy gaʁ]) belies the fact that it simply functioned as a bridge to carry spring-fed water over the Gardon River to the Roman city of Nemausus (modern Nîmes). The Pont du Gard from the southeast This feat of Roman engineering left Melissa and me astonished at just how huge it was: 48.8m high (160 feet) and 275m long (902 feet) on the upper deck. Dressed limestone blocks still hold the structure together without any mortar at all, almost two millennia after construction, while the aqueduct’s channel imperceptibly drops an inch in alti...

I wanted to like Nîmes. I really did. The day before, my traveling buddy Melissa and I had made a daytrip from Avignon in southern France to the neighboring city of Arles , famous for its Roman monuments and twice-weekly market . Rain showers in the morning gave way to late-winter sunshine in the afternoon that illuminated the Roman arena and theater that once again host shows and performances, as they did 2,000 years ago. Enter Nîmes, another mid-sized southern French city bestrewn with Roman ruins. Pronounced “neem” [nim], this city was high on my bucket list for its Maison Carrée , an exquisitely-preserved Roman temple, and its Arènes , or Roman amphitheater. But frustrating our daytrip plans were the relentless winter rains; we felt as if we had simply caught Nîmes on a bad day, when all it wanted was to hide in bed with a good book and a cup of tea. Nevertheless, after our high-speed train pulled into a grand, two-story train station that dates back to the 1840s (!), we ope...

Bundling up in boots, skinny jeans, and scarves while spending Thanksgiving with family a couple weeks ago in Indiana reminded me of the last time the weather was that cold: late February, when my friend Melissa and I traveled around southern France from our home base in Avignon . We were so fed up with the miserable cold, rainy weather in Santiago de Compostela that we decided to hop on over to France’s Mediterranean coast—where you would think  things would be warm and sunny—only to be greeted with more rain and cold weather. I guess you can’t have everything. Place de la République But it’s easy to beat the winter blues when you’re in one of the most beautiful parts of Europe, rain or shine. Avignon welcomed us in for four nights and turned out to be a cozy city overflowing with history. We took advantage of Avignon’s central location and good rail connections to make daytrips to various towns around Provence, once of which was the Roman city of Arles, a mere 17-minute...

The land that we call Spain today belonged to the Roman Empire for nearly 600 years, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that we can find countless relics dating from this time period across the country—not least the Castilian language itself, which derives from the Latin the Romans imposed on Hispania. Coming from a part of the U.S. where it’s a big deal to catch a glimpse of a truck that’s only half a century old , I naturally gravitated to places like ancient Roman ruins as I made my way from one region of Spain to another. This country has so much Roman heritage to offer—on par with Italy or France!—so read on to learn where to go in Spain for your ancient ruin fix. 1) City of Mérida Roman theater Today the capital of vast, lonely Extremadura in western Spain, Mérida was founded as a settlement of emeritus (veteran) soldiers along the Guadiana River. Emerita Augusta  would become the capital of Lusitania province (which included modern-day Portugal and Extremadura) an...

View this post on Instagram Pizza margherita alla romana: tomato sauce, fior di latte cheese, basil leaves, and anchovies. Eaten at one of Naples' classic pizzerias, Trianon. Modern pizza originated here in the city of Naples (Napoli). // #pizza #food #naples #napoli #campania #italy #travel #vsco #vscocam #whitagram A post shared by Trevor Huxham (@trevorhuxham) on Dec 26, 2013 at 12:18pm PST While traveling around Italy last December, I dipped out of Rome after Christmas Day and took the train south to Naples to do three things, and three things only: Explore the ruins of the Roman city of Pompeii , sealed for ages under volcanic ash Eat pizza in the city where it was invented Check in to the archaeological museum, where all of the treasures and wonders of Pompeii were taken for safe keeping. I hadn’t heard great things about Napoli proper, so I (perhaps ignorantly) decided to crash in a hostel for t...

Usually when you think of Roman ruins —in Spain or elsewhere—usually things like crumbling arches, faded mosaics, and fallen-in house walls come to mind. Sometimes there’s a grand aqueduct , and maybe even an amphitheater , but all the sculptures, gravestones, and artifacts are on display in a nearby museum . In any case, you’ll most often see memorials to important dead guys or monumental ruins. Las Médulas That’s why I was so surprised when I visited  Las Médulas:  all that is left of the largest gold mine in the Roman Empire.  Although the modern Spanish word médula  can mean “bone marrow” or “spinal cord,” the name for these mining ruins probably comes from the Latin  metula , the diminutive form of the word meta , which meant “cone” or “pyramid”—which makes sense given the other-worldly rock formations that make up the ruins. Close-up shot Hidden away in the rugged Bierzo region in northwesterly León province, the open-pit mine has sliced th...

I’m a big supporter of Doing What You Want when traveling: of seeing and doing things that you like rather than feeling obligated to mark things off your guidebook’s Top 10 Must-See list. You end up enjoying your travels the most when you focus on the things that interest you —even if that means skipping an “unmissable” sight somewhere else. Roman road I say all this to say… I went to the ruined Roman city of Pompeii in December because I am the biggest nerd ever. Pompeii may not be an obscure or unique place to visit when compared with others that Italy has to offer, but when I made my “Grand Tour” of Italy over Christmas Break, I passed over Venice (which is typically considered an essential stop, and which I had zero  desire to visit) in favor of Pompeii, a place I’ve dreamed for years of seeing one day in person. Studying Latin and learning about Pompeii Wave mosaics I’ve had this urge to go on a pilgrimage to this well-preserved Roman town ever since middle ...

In between moving out of Úbeda and going up north to hike the Camino de Santiago this June, I stopped off for two nights in Mérida, the capital city of the westerly Extremadura region. For the longest time, I had wanted to visit this town because of its well-preserved Roman ruins. After all, Mérida, or Emerita Augusta in Latin, was once the capital of the Lusitania  imperial province that included most of modern-day Portugal as well as west-central Spain. Because of that status, it was bestowed with all the standard things you’d expect out of a Roman city: buildings like theaters, forums, arenas, and temples. Despite 2,000 years of history passing through the region, much of Mérida’s ruins are surprisingly still intact. Toga-wearing tourists at the theater Aqueduct View this post on Instagram Trains heading out of Mérida pass through the Los Milagros Roman aqueduct. You know, just no big deal for this city....

Although the fascinating mix of Arab and Berber cultures was what drew me to Morocco this spring, something else spoke to my inner history major: the crumbling skeleton of a once-flourishing Roman city. This place, called V OLUBILIS by the Romans and Oualili by the Berbers, is one of the most important Roman sites in north Africa, yet many tourists to Morocco have never even heard of the ruins or shy away from making a day-trip from the imperial city of Meknes. Read on to learn why it’s worth putting on your Moroccan itinerary. Strolling down the Decumanus Maximus How do you say “boloo-blah-blah”? Roman inscription recording the name of the city Okay this one’s a little tricky. In Classical Latin it would have been pronounced “woe-LOO-bee-lees” [woˈlu.bi.lis], not far removed from the Berber Oualili  or Walili . For English-speakers, however, it’s probably fine to voice the V since that’s what the French do as well. Go ahead—you can say it out loud if you like! “vo...