Wireless Postcards

The reason that my blogs are a little depopulated this week is that I’m on holiday in Nimes in the South of France. We’re staying in the tiny pedestrianised old city centre that dates back to Roman times. The marble like flagstones of the little narrow medieval streets are shiny clean and the pale stone of the buildings glare white against a blue cloudless sky. Used to weak English light, my eyes are tired from the brightness and my skin is tingling from the blaze of the sun.

I love the contrast of the ancient medieval streets and the trendy boutiques along them, sparking with the latest lifestyle "objets" for the 21st century shopper - including a PC shop and a Mac shop. I also love the grandiose Roman buildings that that ancient imperial power left behind here, as they did throughout much of Europe. The arena that used to host gladiatorial combats and Christians being fed to the lions is one of the best preserved in the world - and now hosts concerts (we just missed French pop singer Vanessa Paradis) and bull fights. The remaining central section of a Roman temple built around 2000 years ago is now an air-conditioned cinema. I can never get my head round how old some of these still-functional Roman edifices are, with their intricate hand carved decorative motifs that are so alive and fresh.

A few years ago I would be browsing through postcards and sitting down at cafes to write notes about all these sights to post to friends back home. But technology has changed all that. I’m texting my family little snippets every day: what we refer to as "blow by blow" accounts. I’m snapping photos on my phone to email to a few friends and to my Flickr account. And I’m writing this blog post on my phone, too - as an email to my Utterz account which should automatically upload to my two blogs.

Now all I need to do is find a free wireless hotspot so I can despatch these "wireless postcards" - which shouldn’t be too difficult as the whole city seems to be flooded with wireless networks, according to my phone.