Southern France
 

 
 

 

Exploring Southern France

 
Pont du Gard, part of an ancient Roman aqueduct

Pont du Gard

Lin-Wei had traveled to this region of France known as Provence a few years earlier, and was eager to show me some of the sights. Our first stop was Pont du Gard, or "bridge over the river Gard". This was a portion of the 31 mile long aqueduct that fed the city of Nimes. This place was unbelievable. The fact that the Romans had the technology, infrastructure, and time to build a 31 mile water distribution system blew my mind. But this thing has been standing since 19 BC! That's good quality workmanship there. Just one look at this thing, and I was totally psyched up. Maybe it was in my blood, since three generations of
 
Another part of the aqueduct ruins
my family (including me!) were involved in water distribution, but it totally fascinated me. The bridge is the most spectacular part of the aqueduct, but we followed its path in either direction, and found more remnants of the aqueduct. These things had to built so that the force of gravity moved the water from the upstream water source to the final destination. From a mountain river near Uzes, the Nimes aqueduct carried water for 31 miles, and it only descended 17 meters vertically over the whole 31 miles. How's that for engineering? If you think the bridge wasn't that big, take a look at this picture.

We left Pont du Gard, and having time to kill that day, we decided to checkout a small town nearby that had a medieval castle. No worries of Verona this time, as we didn't have any directions, so there was no expectations.

 
Two hours, and this is the only picture I took. Sorry...
But the town was small, with signs pointing the way to the castle. We thought maybe we'd explore the castle before (an already late) lunch, and that is what we did. The castle was huge, but seemed to just be in business to support some bird show, but there was no bird show that day. We got to explore much of the castle grounds on our own, but the castle itself was closed that day. It was still pretty awesome. And when we were done exploring... all the restaurants were closed. Fearing the hungry wife beast could come out at any moment, I pushed Blue to the limit to get back to Montpellier.

When we got back, it was total pandemonium! The town square was packed with people, and it looked like some festival was going on. Music and art filled the square, and we soaked it in. After some food, we explored the town, and we found a pretty cool stone gazebo-like structure. We climbed stairs up to it, and there, stretching off into the distance, was another aqueduct! Booyah! I was still psyched up about Pont du Gard, and here was another aqueduct right in Montpellier! What a town, man. So of course we had to follow it to see where it went.

 
If your town has an aqueduct, we'll find it.
This bridge was longer than Pont du Gard, and as we walked, we began to see the ground rise up, and the aqueduct start to get lower and lower. And then it disappeared into the ground. Most of the aqueducts were built underground. They only came above ground, like here or in Pont du Gard, when the water had to cross a valley or river (the River Gard), or finally came into the city. Along the route to where the aqueduct went underground we saw groups of old men playing bocce ball in the fading light of the day. How cool is that?

The feet were in pain, and I'm sure shoe integrity was below 50% at this point, so how about some dinner? Exploring near the university we found a Spanish tapas place, and we got a table, since it was only 7pm. Yes, we were the only ones in there. But I was excited, because I figured that I'd get to use some Spanish, which is about 1000x better than my French. The owner was an older man, but with a relaxed and happy face, and I proceeded to order food in Spanish. But then he starting speaking Spanish back to me, and while I can speak it ok, I had no idea what he was saying. So I felt like an idiot again. But dinner was good, and later we ate some dessert crepes filled with Nutella chocolate. Those are damn good. Then we called it a night..

 
Later we will learn that this Montpellier Aqueduct was built in the 16th Century, unlike the Pont du Gard, which was built in the first century.
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