A Well Kept Man

After leaving the Pont du Gard, we headed to the city of Nîmes which is very similar to Arles in terms of architecture and feel. Nîmes however, has many more Roman buildings which are in much better condition. The arena (colosseum) in Nîmes was more complete than the arena in Arles, and Nîmes also has an ancient Roman temple, a Pantheon-like structure, a tower, and the remains of gate that marked the entrance to the city which dates from sometime in the early first century BC.

There are also canals running through the city which begin near the Roman Temple of Diane as a result of a naturally occurring spring. The exact purpose of this temple is unknown, but the ruins are part of what was most likely a much larger area of buildings, gardens, and monuments. Seeing such ancient buildings truly makes you stop and ponder just how long people have been running around on Earth.

As we sat in a park outside the arena eating some market food (hot sausages on a baguette for the boys, Mediterranean salad for the lady), we marveled at the awesome events that must have transpired within the arches of the arena (not the actual arches, I'm just attempting to wow you with my poetic skills). We were able to see a few more churches as well as more old stuff as we walked through the city on a pleasant Sunday afternoon (which meant pretty much everything was closed so all of our activities occurred outside). Although the picture doesn't do the scene justice, there was this dog resting his head on a window sill in one of Nîmes' squares. It just seemed to capture the mood of the day, a lazy Sunday in Spring. Our favorite sights here were the gardens (where the Temple of Diane and the Great Tower reside), as well as the arena/amphitheatre (at least from the outside it looked good...kind of hard to justify spending money to go into another arena when you were just in one the day before). Next stop, Avignon...

What trip to Provence wouldn't be complete without a stop at an engineering marvel? So to make sure our trip was complete, we took a morning to go check out this Roman aqueduct from the 1st century AD (although this is slightly disputed, it could have been built earlier). This aqueduct was built without mortar, which is fairly impressive considering it is still standing (although some of the largest stones weigh around 6 tons a piece, so it would take quite the effort to move this monumental structure). It is the second highest standing Roman structure remaining besides the Colosseum in Rome. It's largest arch is 22 m high (just over 72 feet), which means you could drive somewhere between five and six semi trucks stacked on top of each other through the arch (except they'd need pontoons or something to float them as trucks don't drive too well on water). The Pont du Gard was designed as a piece of a greater aqueduct to help ferry water some 50 km (31 miles give or take), with the Pont carrying the water about 275 m (~300 yards) of the way (about 5 million gallons of water made it over the Pont du Gard each day). The level of the river below it was fairly insignificant, but that is not always the case as it has seen several major floods that have tested its abilities (and thankfully survived). Parts of the aqueduct on either end have been pillaged over the years to help build other structures, but the central span still remains and now will stand unharmed (except for the occasional graphic artist) as it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.