The Rest of the Pont du Gard

I think that everyone in the Whole Wide World has seen photographs of the Pont du Gard.  It is that awe-inspiring triple-layered arched Roman aqueduct spanning the Gard River in Provence. Nimes was one of the most important cities outside Italy that was part of the Roman Empire.  As it expanded its water supply became inadequate, so in the first century AD a 50 km long aqueduct was built form a spring near Uzes to Nimes. It is thought that the whole system took up to 15 years to complete, and was used continuously for around 400 years till it fell into disrepair, and was abandoned.

Well we all wanted to see the Pont du Gard, but didn’t just want to drive over to the car park to join the busloads of tourists, then drive back to Uzes.  So we worked out a route which would allow us to park the car in Vers, a village four kilometres from the Pont, and use the wonderful French sentiers, of footpaths, to walk over to the Point and back.  Vers is a delightful village, with every building made out of the local limestone, and just perfectly blending into the landscape.

On the way over to the Pont we saw a lot of dogs running around with their noses to the ground, and tails in the air, followed by Frenchmen with big guns.  There were signs up stating that there was a wild boar hunt on.  Ted thought that it might be smart to stay out of the scrub and stick to the bitumen bike path to the Pont. So being a committed vegetarian I called out “Run little Piggies, Run”, and we walked quickly on.

The Pont itself, of course, was spectacular. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and was unbelievably free of the tack surrounding, say, the Colosseum.  But just as interesting the Pont itself was the large sections of the aqueduct that were almost intact that marched across the countryside back to Uzes through ancient olive groves.  We walked along a sentier beside the “vestiges d’aqueduct” all the way back to Vers, where we ate our sandwiches in a lovely little park.

A really great day.

Chris