In the summer, Zoe and I went to Montpellier for our summer break. Zoe is a very organised tourist (even more so than me) and had found lots of things for us to do and usually the public transport to do them, so on the first day we went to the Pont du Gard. We took a train to nearby Nimes and then the bus from Nimes to the Pont.
It is a Roman era aqueduct that remains in astonishingly good condition for its age.
It was a blisteringly hot day. It's an easy walk up from the visitors centre (we booked tickets online beforehand) and then across the bridge. You can take a steep path up to an overlook so that you can see it from above, but the heat discouraged us from doing that and we went and drank Aperol Spritz in the shady cafe instead.
The river was the colour of fudge but there were any number of people enjoying water activities. These mostly consisted of canoeing, leaping off the low cliffs (we watched one little girl spend a good 5 minutes plucking up the courage to hop in) and some higher cliffs and splashing in the little shallow pools that had been roped off for youngsters to use.
Spot the jumper.
We didn't clock that such pursuits were available or we would have taken swimmers with us. The French seem to swim in all their bodies of open water - I guess it must be a Europe-wide thing. I know we don't in the UK because of Weil's disease but surely it can't be more common here than there?
Anyway, I had a splash.
My new Saltwater sandals. Worth their weight, though we walked so much (and in water a lot, too) that I ended up with a couple of wicked blisters after this, their first day of wear.
After a good prowl around the museum, learning about the Romans in that part of the world, we caught the bus back. It was an excellent day out and I can recommend. Such an iconic piece of the ancient world, I'm pleased to say I made it there at least once.
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