21 February ’05, Monday. Roman Viaduct Pond du Gard
9am the sun is shining, a little toward the COLD side and we push off towards Lyons.
Our first stop will be about 40km (25 miles) up the road to Pont du Gard. Pont du Gard is a beautifully preserved Roman aqua-duct. It sits in a remote and very peaceful country setting, with the Gard River running under it. This structure is more than just a viaduct for carrying water. The water “trough” is at the highest point of the structure, and then they built a bridge beside it that is about 1/3 the height of the whole. This was the highest bridge ever constructed by the Romans and was used to carry water from Uzes to Nimes, which is over 50 km away (30 miles). The water channel isn’t in use now, but we could walk across the bridge portion. Again, it turned out to be just the right time to visit, as the sun was out and starting to warm things up a (very) little, and there was very few visitors there. We enjoyed about an hour there and then got back into “Bumble Bee” and continued on to Lyons. Again, our plan was to take the secondary roads and enjoy the scenery and get up and personal with the little villages along the route. We had a much straighter route today, which was nice, but the “round-a bout’s” will drive you crazy after awhile. About noon we found ourselves getting into some weird weather for this time of year. Snow…coming at us sideways, the wind blowing so hard that it pushed us all over the road, and then everything would stop, begin again with the largest flakes just floating, and then the wind and snow again…hell, it was quite a show. By the time we arrived in Lyons and found our new campground, there was enough snow in the ground that all I had to do, was dip my bucket down once to fill it with enough snow to cover our champagne bottle that complimented tonight’s dinner. Our plans are to spend 2 days here and then continue heading north with our next stop in Paris.
9am the sun is shining, a little toward the COLD side and we push off towards Lyons.
Our first stop will be about 40km (25 miles) up the road to Pont du Gard. Pont du Gard is a beautifully preserved Roman aqua-duct. It sits in a remote and very peaceful country setting, with the Gard River running under it. This structure is more than just a viaduct for carrying water. The water “trough” is at the highest point of the structure, and then they built a bridge beside it that is about 1/3 the height of the whole. This was the highest bridge ever constructed by the Romans and was used to carry water from Uzes to Nimes, which is over 50 km away (30 miles). The water channel isn’t in use now, but we could walk across the bridge portion. Again, it turned out to be just the right time to visit, as the sun was out and starting to warm things up a (very) little, and there was very few visitors there. We enjoyed about an hour there and then got back into “Bumble Bee” and continued on to Lyons. Again, our plan was to take the secondary roads and enjoy the scenery and get up and personal with the little villages along the route. We had a much straighter route today, which was nice, but the “round-a bout’s” will drive you crazy after awhile. About noon we found ourselves getting into some weird weather for this time of year. Snow…coming at us sideways, the wind blowing so hard that it pushed us all over the road, and then everything would stop, begin again with the largest flakes just floating, and then the wind and snow again…hell, it was quite a show. By the time we arrived in Lyons and found our new campground, there was enough snow in the ground that all I had to do, was dip my bucket down once to fill it with enough snow to cover our champagne bottle that complimented tonight’s dinner. Our plans are to spend 2 days here and then continue heading north with our next stop in Paris.