Sightseeing today, to Pont du Gard a famous old Roman ruin, and to the city of Nimes to see the Arena and La Maison Carree. We got an early start, beat most of the traffic and tourists, and had a welcome, uncrowded visit to Pont du Gard.
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| "YOU ARE HERE" |
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| Semi-old tourists by ancient Roman three-tier bridge at Pont du Gard |
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| High view!!! Notice the kayakers, great idea for our next kayak camping expedition |
Pont du Gard is the largest standing Roman bridge/aqueduct in the world, if I remember correctly. What a marvel, for those of us who love engineering feats, or who grew up playing with building blocks and tools. All these stones were precision cut and stacked without mortar, to build this elaborately beautiful construction that has endured for more than about 2500 years. It was an aqueduct, carrying water to the city of Nimes, and was a bridge carrying people, chariots, and whatever else moved back then. In 1822, a new pedestrian bridge was built in front of the original Roman work. That’s the bridge we walked on today, so we could get up close to the old Roman stonework.
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| High on the scary trail! |
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| "Panorama" trail looked pretty benign at the beginning! |
Kind of tough to show you LOTS of photos of this place…it’s only one huge span of bridge, and only so many ways to photograph it! But the setting and weather and conditions were so perfect, we took some of the stuff included here. We hiked UP a steep, ancient, stoney, slippery, fun old path to a “Panormic Overlook”, to see the bridge from on high. Lynn made it most of the way, and I scrambled the rest to get the one or two high pics. FUN day climbing all over this ruin. The Romans were really good at building, no doubt.
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| ARENA AT NIMES |
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Matador statute outside Arena
Along the lines of Roman building, we went to Nimes to see more Roman construction, this time the Arena and La Maison Carree. The Arena is still standing like the Romans built it, and is still being used: now it’s for bull fights. In fact, a famous matador’s statute is outside the front of the Arena, so we got our pic taken there. Oddly, over the years, people passing by must have fondled his "package", because that part of the statute has acquired it’s own shiny patina! The Arena is undergoing a continuing restoration now, so much of it’s facade was hidden, but the part we could see was almost identical to other coliseum type buildings in other parts of Europe. They must have worked from a basic plan |
Next stop, a few blocks away (we navigated by tourist map and never got lost!), was La Maison Carree. It’s like other central-city Roman buildings we’ve seen in other cities, just on bigger scale. This was once the seat of government, built with free-standing columns out front, and walled-in columns along part of each side and the back. It was part of a huge complex of government buildings which did not survive the centuries. So interesting to see how this was made, the consistency of design with other similar buildings in other towns, and to imagine the hundreds of generations of people who have run up and down these steps before us.
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| La Maison Carree, NImes |
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| Same place, more stairs in this view. |
Back home now, pasta dinner consumed at a local Italian restaurant in the L'Isle town square. We spoke constantly to our dining companions, a couple from Australia who were fascinating, funny, interested in Florida, and are small-scale wine-makers in their own home. Now I'm ready to try to bike Mt. Ventoux early tomorrow. Praying for low wind and fair temperatures. Will report the results! Good night, and thanks for reading this stuff!
LINK TO all the photos we took so far, if you'd like to see more:
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