France Guide
Languedoc
The Pont du Gard
Opening time: Daily May– Sept 9am–7pm; Oct– April 9.30am–5.30pm (museum)
Price: €7 (museum)
Website: www.pontdugard.fr
Some twenty kilometres northeast from Nîmes, the Pont du Gard is the greatest surviving stretch of a fifty-kilometre-long Roman aqueduct built in the middle of the first century AD to supply fresh water to the city. With just a seventeen-metre difference in altitude between start and finish, the aqueduct was quite an achievement, running as it does over hill and dale, through a tunnel, along the top of a wall, into trenches and over rivers; the Pont du Gard carries it over the River Gardon. Today the bridge is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and something of a tourist trap, but is nonetheless a supreme piece of engineering and a brilliant combination of function and aesthetics; it made the impressionable Rousseau wish he'd been born Roman.
Three tiers of arches span the river, with the covered water conduit on the top, rendered with a special plaster waterproofed with a paint apparently based on fig juice. A visit here used to be a must for French journeymen masons on their traditional tour of the country, and many of them have left their names and home towns carved on the stonework. Markings made by the original builders are still visible on individual stones in the arches, such as "FR S III – frons sinistra", front side left no. 3. The Pont du Gard has recently undergone a massive restoration programme and now features an extensive multimedia complex, the Site de Pont du Gard, which includes a state-of-the-art musuem botanical gardens, and a range of regular children's activities. With the swimmable waters of the Gardon and ample picnic possibilities available, you could easily spend a day here.