Kiwi Roaming

We headed off early to beat the tour buses and drove about an hour from our villa to Pont du Gard, the second most visited place in France apparently.

Pont du Gard – this was on my list of must do while here and it didn’t disappoint. Built by the Romans in 40AD to supply them with water in the city of Nîmes, modified in the 18th Century to include a footbridge and later declared as a UNESCO World Heritage site – what’s not to disappoint. It was a hot day but we were thrilled to find a fairly empty carpark and the way the site has been preserved loads of room so even when the tourists arrived as we were leaving it never felt crowded. Pont du Gard is simply amazing to view both from a distance and up close. Crazy to think how it might have been constructed without modern machinery! we walked through the feeder tunnel (water) which was clearly hand dug through rock and marveled at the giant stones used in the construction – how did they cut them? and lift them into place? (48m high) some of these weigh up to 6 tonnes apparently. It’s just amazing. I loved visiting.

The whole site has been created really beautifully with a museum, cinema, shops, restaurant, view points to photograph from and places to swim both up and down stream – loads of people were swimming and kayaking, with no wind it was a perfect day.

We took a walk in the ancient gardens, saw an event being held in the grounds, photographed a variety of other ruins and buildings then sat on a wall to eat our pizza and quiches for lunch looking back to the aqueduct. Such a special feeling just to be there. We also saw 3 x 1000+ year old Olive trees with amazing trunk systems.

Uzès – we drove to this beautiful nearby town, slightly larger than others we had visited and beautifully preserved. Karen and Paul hadn’t eaten at Pont du Gard so headed off to find food while the rest of us secured a car-park. The roading system is a one way ring road with car-parks at key city sites so we ended up outside the Museum where a Gendarme was checking for paid parking.

Uzès is so chocolate box pretty, with meandering pedestrian streets, cute wee shops and stalls, a busy main street full of restaurants and cafe’s and after walking a few blocks away from the centre we found a sporting complex and school. Really glad we came here as it’s gorgeous to wander around aimlessly and marvel at the age of the houses and take photos of the cute paint and stonework.

Back to the Villa for a swim, BBQ dinner and early nights.