The roman arena at Nimes

...In its ( Nimes' ) centre lay the great Roman arena, like some medieval crown, rescued after a millennium in the sea, carunculated and blurred by the corals. It glittered in the fierce glare of the sun and, in every nook and cranny of this crown, pigeons gasped and gaped in the shade. Dogs panted from tree to tree, fronds of white saliva trailing from their tongues. Cicadas relentlessly fretted on the great patched bodies of the plane trees that lined the boulevards.