Day 26 - Qu'est-ce que les Romains ont fait pour nous ? 🤔

What did the Romans ever do for us? Well, for starters, they gave us aqueducts to get water from A to B. The Pont du Gard is a Roman aqueduct bridge built in the first century AD to carry water over 31 mi to the Roman colony of Nîmes in southern France, crossing over the river  Gardon . It is the tallest of all Roman aqueduct bridges, as well as one of the best preserved. It stands 160 feet tall and the water 'trough' along the top is 6 feet deep. It is a very nice UNESCO world site. Our plan was to drive around the valley to the northern end of the bridge, go round the museum and then look at the bridge first thing in the morning. We would then go to the city of Avignon and spend the rest of the day there.

The aqueduct is quite a remarkable bit of engineering standing on its 3 layers of archways Its not a straight run from the natural springs up in the north by Uzès to the aqueduct over the river but follows the contours of the hill sides and valleys, and along a lot of its lenght,  thru tunnels on both sides of the bridge (dark line above) following a very shallow gradient/drop over its entire length: 1 in 3000. It was the easiest way they could come up with to provide an estimated 8.8 millon gallons of water a day to private houses, fountains and public baths, for the 50,000 inhabitants of Nîmes.

After the fall of the Roman empire the aquaduct fell into disuse and a lot of the stone used to build the channels and waterways on either side of the bridge was stolen for local buildings. It has been one of Frances main attractions since the start of the 18th century. The museum at the visitors center is a treasure trove of information; Jill spent 2hrs just going round that!

Its hard to believe that this stonework is over 2000 years old and what it took to build it.

.......tunnel providing water to the the start of the aquaduct on top of the bridge.

.... Jill standing were the water would have flowed.

... much smaller bridge and section of aqueduct further along. Most of the outer bricks stolen over the years.

The river under the bridge is a favorite recreation area for both locals and tourists.

By the time we had climbed over and along all we could see it was too late to move on so, after ice cream because it was hot 😋, we headed back to the carpark. No matter what the tourist attraction is, anywhere in the world, there is always one childs, abandoned shoe, flip flop or wellington boot that has been dropped or thrown out of a pram. Only fitting that it should be a tiny little (Roman?) sandle here 😅

We were heading further up the valley to a proper campsite with showers for one night; Flower Camping Les Fauvettes at Anduze .

A huge campsite with over 70 pitches, it had nice single pitches separated by hedges, plenty of shade and very clean toilet blocks.

      On the bad side it was close to the main road, so noisy. It was Saturday night and the start of the season so the 'pool party people' came out and stayed out till gone midnight. Jill discovered, late at night, in the dark having to wave her hands over her head to keep the lights on that the hot and cold were plumbed in the wrong way. But that wasnt the worst of it....

 " What sort of a campsite have you brought me too, woman?🤔"....."what do you mean?"..

"have you seen the sign in the toilet block?😯"..