Spanning the Rhone near Avignon immediately upstream off
where our ship docked, is a medieval bridge: the Pont Saint-Bénézet. The original timber bridge built at this
site in 1185 only survived forty years before being rebuilt with 22 stone
arches in 1345. Vulnerable to the
effects of flooding, the bridge was abandoned in the 17th century. Only four spans of the bridge survive and in
1995 the these spans were classified as a World Heritage
Site.
Today we visited a 50 km-long aqueduct built by the Romans in
the 1st century AD. In order to cross the
Gardon River, the Romans constructed an impressive stone viaduct to carry the aqueduct
across a wide valley. It turns out that this viaduct, the Pont du Gard, is the highest of all Roman aqueduct bridges and
is well preserved.
The bridge is 275 m long and nearly 50 m high (the height
of a 15 storey building). The whole
aqueduct falls only 17 m over its 50km, while the bridge has a gradient of
only 1 in 3,000. Just how the Roman engineers
managed to achieve these precise grades using the technology of the day is amazing,
especially considering that they would not have been aware of the effects of
the earth’s curvature on the performance of such a long aqueduct. Nevertheless,
the aqueduct worked and carried 200,000 m3 of water a day. Due to lack of ongoing maintenance the aqueduct
feel into disrepair 400 years after construction. The
Pont du Gard was added as a World Heritage Site in 1985 on the criteria of
"Human creative genius; testimony to cultural tradition; significance to
human history:” which is code for “Engineers are bloody clever”.
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| Early Morning View of River Le Rhone |
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| Passing through one of the many lock on the River Le Rhone |
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| Cruising up the River Le Rhone |
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| View of Avignon from the River Le Rhone |
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| The Pont Saint-Bénézet (Pont d'Avignon) bridge (built 1185). |
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A very old Olive Tree
Given its size, I suspect it is thousands of years old |
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| Ancient Roman aqueduct Pont du Gard bridge (built in the 1st century) |
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| View of the Aqueduct Pont du Gard |
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| People |
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| People |
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| People |
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| People |
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