Pont du Gard

This was the last brutally windy day of our vacation. On the other hand the wind was blessing since the afternoon became really hot (it was +29°C when we returned to the car). Our destination of the day was Pont du Gard, an ancient Roman aqueduct bridge constructed in the first century AD to carry water over 50 kilometers to the town of Nîmes (then a Roman colony of Nemausus). It is almost 50 meters high and carried about 40,000 cubic meters of water a day. It may have used still in the 6th century, but with no maintenance after the 4th century, the water flow was gradually blocked by debris. Thereafter, it operated as a toll bridge for a while and,  starting from the 18th century, became an important tourist attraction, with major renovations done between the 18th and 21st centuries (info from Wikipedia). Our Airbnb host told us that about ten years ago visitors still had access to the top tier (seen as blocked in the picture below), but nowadays only the road bridge adjacent to the first tier, added in the 18th century, is open to public.

Overall, the hike was quite easy, but there were some sections of the trail that were tricky, steep and rocky, especially when going downhill.  We saw few people hiking to the bridge from the town of Saint-Bonnet du Gard, but were quite surprised about the number of people by the bridge and the river Gardon picnicking, swimming, diving, canoeing, and bicycling. If that was an off-season crowd, we couldn’t but wonder what it will be like during the Summer vacation season!

(to be continued in Part IV)