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Pont du Gard and the Nimes Roman Aqueduct

Pauline

Forums Admin
I updated my photos and short article about the Pont du Gard on the main website to include other remains of the aqueduct.

Slow Europe Photos - France - Pont du Gard

The Pont du Gard is a bridge that carried a Roman aqueduct over the River Gardon. The aqueduct ran 35 miles from the source in Uzes to the destination at Nimes. The Pont du Gard is essentially three bridges built one on top of the other to reach the required height. The lower bridge has six arches, the next has 11 and the top has 36 small arches (originally there were more on the top). The channel of water ran on the top of the bridge.

The Pont du Gard is the best preserved and most interesting remaining part of the aqueduct, but the other remains are also interesting. Much of the aqueduct was underground and parts of the tunnels remain. A few bridges remain. In two areas long stretches of arches that carried the aqueduct above ground remain.

The aqueduct ran on a convoluted route to maintain a slight downhill slope to make the water run. The elevation at the start was 56 feet (17 meters) higher than at the end, but that was enough to cause the water to flow (over 35 miles). The Pont du Gard is very high so that the correct slope for the aqueduct was maintained.

It was fun hunting out these obscure bits of the aqueduct. I read about them in a guidebook and found the spots marked on my hiking maps for the area, so they were easy to find. There is one that we did not visit, the tunnels near Sernac, but we will see them on our next trip.

I have a lot of photos on the site (link above) but here is one of a long stretch of arches, Pont de la Lone, near the Pont du Gard.

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We found the Sernac Tunnels this week and they were very interesting. Two tunnels carved through hillsides, lined with rock. You can walk through them. I will update my Pont du Gard notes and photos when I get home.

Photo inside one of the tunnels.

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