Pont du Gard

In the 1st century AD the Roman colony of Nemausus, today's Nîmes, needed water and found it at a spring near Uzès. The two towns are only about 20 km apart, but hills covered in dense garrigue lay between them, so the engineers took a winding route of some 50 km, mostly underground, with a total drop of just 17 metres. Where the channel had to cross the gorge of the Gardon, they built the Pont du Gard: three tiers of arches in golden shelly limestone, 49 metres high and about 275 metres long at the top, carrying a conduit roughly 1.8 metres high. The bridge itself falls only 2.5 cm along its length.

Exceptionally tall by Roman standards, it was built largely without mortar. Blocks of up to six tonnes, cut at a quarry 700 metres downstream, were fitted so precisely that friction and weight hold them together; many still carry the builders' Latin placement marks, and the stone knobs left sticking out of the faces once supported scaffolding. The aqueduct delivered around 40,000 cubic metres of water a day, taking some 27 hours from source to city, until mineral build-up and neglect choked it after the 4th century.

The bridge survived the Middle Ages because it was useful: local lords and later the bishops of Uzès charged tolls to cross it and had to keep it in repair. In 1743–1747 a road bridge was built against the lower tier, and for two and a half centuries cars drove across. From the 18th century the Pont du Gard became a stop on the Grand Tour and a place of pilgrimage for France's journeyman masons, the Compagnons du Tour de France, whose carved names can still be found on the stones. It rode out the great flood of 1958, when water covered the whole lower tier.

The Pont du Gard became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985. Since 2000 the surroundings have been cleared of traffic and souvenir stalls, and a visitor centre designed by Jean-Paul Viguier on the north bank holds a museum on the aqueduct. Walking trails and a garden of Mediterranean landscapes, Mémoires de Garrigue, surround the site, and the riverbanks below give the best view of the three tiers together.

Getting there

The bridge is near the village of Vers-Pont-du-Gard, about 19 km from Nîmes. The nearest airport is Nîmes-Arles-Camargue (FNI), about 23 km away.