The Pont du Gard

A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Pont du Gard aqueduct reads like a book of records in its own right! It measures, at its highest, 49m in height and 275m in length; some of its stone blocks are over 2.3m in dimension, while c.50,000 tonnes of stone were employed for the entire construction. It was built to resist, successfully, massive floods in the Gardon Valley. It’s one of the best-known, best-preserved Roman sites in the world. A staggering feat of engineering, it spans the Gardon Gorge. The place amazes visitors both because of its impressive grandeur and the beauty of its natural setting. 

The site of the Pont du Gard can be visited year-round. The museum on the spot relates all the stages in its construction. From Beaucaire, a 22km-long greenway allows cyclists to reach the Pont du Gard easily from the Méditerranée à Vélo cycle route. The greater aqueduct of which the Pont du Gard was just a part was built to carry water from Uzès to Nîmes. For five centuries, it provided the city of Nîmes with vast quantities of pressurized water. Talk about making the practical beautiful!