Pont Du Gard - Gard Bridge 🇫🇷 France Travel Guide

Admirably integrated into a natural site that has preserved its wild charm, the Pont du Gard fascinates with its elegance and majesty. 2,000 years after its construction, this ancient edifice is still a veritable masterpiece, as much for the technical prowess involved in its construction as for its stark beauty. This prestigious monument was constructed at a magnificent site at the end of the Gardens Gorges. Designed to carry water across the small Gordon river valley, it was part of a nearly 50-kilometer-long aqueduct that brought water from nearby springs in Uzès to the Roman city of Namasus, the present-day city of Nîmes. A magical site, it draws its power from the natural elements surrounding it, rocky outcrops of limestone, the water of the river, and lush Mediterranean vegetation. Nature is ever-present in this part of the Gard. The Roman architects and hydraulic engineers who designed this bridge created a technical as well as an artistic masterpiece. The Pont du Gard rises almost 50 meters high and is composed of three levels, the longest of which measures 275 meters. The Pont du Gard was built over 2,000 years ago in 19 BC, and its structure has become a symbol of the power of ancient Roman civilization. It was constructed entirely without the use of mortar. The stones that compose the aqueduct, some of which weigh up to six tons, are held together with iron clamps. The volume of stone required to make the bridge has been estimated at 21,000 cubic meters, with a total weight of some 50,400 tons. The completion of the aqueduct would permit the people of Nîmes to receive water in abundance, but obstacles arose that were difficult to surmount. The aqueduct's ultimate design and location was a compromise between physical, technical, and financial constraints. The bridge is composed of three rows of arches. The first two rows are composed of respectively six and eleven typically Roman arches, superimposed on each other and measuring between 15 and 24 meters. On the third level stand 47 arches extending 490 meters on which the canal flowed. It took almost five years to complete this colossal project. The entire aqueduct has a gradient of 34 centimeters per kilometer, descending only 17 meters vertically along its entire length, and delivering 20,000 cubic meters of water daily. There is no reference to the name of the architect who designed the monument. Its only inscription, mens totum corium, is in Latin, and can be seen on one of the bottom pylons. It simply means that the entire structure has been measured. The new bridge needed to be solidly anchored into the soil to resist the force of the river's current. The support pylons were therefore set into the stone that lies beneath the banks of the Gordon River and shaped to break the strength of the flow of the current. The monument still bears traces of the rational organization of the project. Stones were numbered and support points for scaffolding and lifting devices can be detected. The aqueduct flourished during the second and third centuries A.D. Because of the scarcity of resources, the aqueduct was no longer regularly maintained from the fourth century on. The aqueduct was definitively abandoned at the beginning of the sixth century. From the Middle Ages until the 18th century, the aqueduct was used as a conventional bridge to facilitate foot traffic over the river. The aqueduct was first restored in the 18th century, by which time it had become a major tourist site, and was restored again under the reign of Napoleon III in the mid-19th century. Under the rule of the Emperor Augustus, the Roman Empire extended its boundaries throughout the Mediterranean and the Roman economy flourished. Many large-scale engineering projects were undertaken, including the construction of aqueducts throughout Italy and the wider reaches of the Empire, including the Pont du Gard. The Pont du Gard served both civic and political purposes by providing for the transportation of water, to one of Rome's most important provincial cities. A good supply of running water was an invaluable political tool, for it kept the populace loyal to Rome and content with living in a Roman colony. Due to the particular quality of its natural environment of greek scrubland and evergreen oak forests, the area around the Pont du Gard has been listed as a site protected by environmental law since 1930. The monument is more majestic than ever after the recent restoration of its spectacular natural setting of 165 hectares of Mediterranean terrain. The setting is a protected environmental site and is closed to vehicle traffic. The river's banks are covered in a type of local scrub vegetation, known as greek, featuring evergreen oak trees, low dense bushes, herbs and agricultural land enclosed by stone walls. The aqueduct was restored under the reign of Napoleon III in the mid-19th century. The outstanding quality of the bridge's masonry quickly made it an obligatory stop for French journeyman masons on their traditional tour of the country, many of whom carved their names into the bridge's stones. These craftsmen and artisans were also called the Compagnons du Tour de France, a French organization established during the Middle Ages and still active today. Their traditional technical education included traveling around France on the so-called Tour de France and apprenticing with a variety of skilled masters. In 1998, the Pont du Gard was hit by major flooding which caused widespread damage to the area. The road leading up to it and the neighboring facilities were badly damaged, although the aqueduct itself was not seriously harmed. A bridge for vehicle traffic was added to the lower level, already used as a bridge by horses and pedestrians, in 1743. The Celts dominated France until 125 BC when France came under Roman influence. Julius Caesar conquered part of Gaul in 57 to 52 BC and it remained under Roman rule until the Franks invaded Gaul in the 5th century AD. The Romans were afraid of populations having local identities and began to exert control over them. Many changes occurred as Rome began to extend its cultural and political influence over Gaul, including the substitution of Latin for the native language of Gaul. Similarities between the two languages favored the transition. The earliest Roman constructions in what is now France enabled Rome to organize the whole of southern Gaul by giving farmland to Roman colonizers and building new towns. Communication between Rome and its colonial cities was favored by the construction of roads, which also allowed commercial exchanges to occur between adjoining towns along the new roads in effect stimulating the local economy. The Roman Empire needed a way to maintain a firm hold on its conquests. It was imperative to build a main road for military use that would allow communication among the provinces. Nîmes, the city which received the water from the aqueduct of the Pont du Gard, was one of the cities connected to Rome by the Via Domitia. This road linked the Spanish provinces in Italy, passing through Norbonne, Nîmes, Orange and Cavaillon. The French government sponsored a major redevelopment project in conjunction with local sources, UNESCO and the European Union, that was concluded in 2000. This project closed the entire area around the aqueduct to vehicle traffic, reserving it exclusively for pedestrians, and greatly improved the visitor facilities, including the establishment of a museum on the north bank of the river. The project was criticized for its cost and the perceived loss of natural beauty in the surrounding landscape and area. But the redevelopment has made the area around the Pont du Gard much quieter by banning vehicle traffic, while the new museum provides a greatly improved historical context for visitors. The Pont du Gard is a masterpiece of human creative genius, an exceptional testimony to the technical achievements of an ancient civilization, and a feat of construction that illustrates a significant stage in human history. The Pont du Gard was added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1985.