Pond Du Garre

The Roman Aqueduct Built Without Mortar Is Still Standing

The Pont du Gard was built around 50 CE without mortar. The massive limestone blocks – some weighing 6 tonnes – were cut to fit precisely against each other using only the weight and geometry of their interlocking shapes to hold a 49-metre-high structure that has been standing for 2,000 years through floods, earthquakes, wars, partial quarrying for building material, and 20 centuries of Gardon river flow. The fact that it still exists, structurally sound, says something about Roman engineering that the Colosseum and the Pantheon – both mortared – cannot say quite as clearly.

The bridge was one section of a 50-kilometre aqueduct carrying water from springs near Uzes to the Roman city of Nemausus (modern Nimes). The entire aqueduct maintained a gradient of 1 in 3,000 over its full length – meaning it drops one metre for every 3,000 metres of horizontal distance – a surveying precision that required instruments and knowledge whose principles are still not fully understood. The aqueduct ran for roughly four centuries.

The Visit

Entry costs EUR 19 per car (all occupants included) or EUR 10 per adult on foot or by bike. The ticket covers the museum and visitor centre opened in 2000. The museum covers Roman water engineering, daily life in Nimes, and the aqueduct’s construction history with genuinely good detail – this is not a perfunctory heritage site presentation.

You can walk across the bridge on the second tier, at Roman road level, and look into the water channel at the top through a glass panel inserted into the channel floor. The scale of the upper tier arches viewed from the first tier is the moment that stops most visitors: 35 narrow arches running across the top of the structure, each one the height of a building, and the whole thing built without a single nail.

Swimming in the Gardon river below the bridge is permitted and popular in summer. The view of the structure from water level – looking up at three tiers of arches rising above you – gives the most complete impression of its scale and is better than any road approach.

The Canoe Route

Canoe hire is available through the visitor centre and independent operators near the site. The standard route from Collias to Pont du Gard is 8 kilometres with the current, taking 2-3 hours. The bridge becomes visible several kilometres downstream; arriving by water under the first-tier arches is the approach the Romans used and is significantly more affecting than arriving from the car park. This is not a tourist gimmick – it is the correct way to understand what the structure is doing in its landscape.

The Surrounding Area

Nimes, 25 kilometres southwest, has the Arena of Nimes: a Roman amphitheatre built around 70 CE that is more completely preserved than the Colosseum and still in regular use for concerts and bullfights. Entry is EUR 10. The Maison Carree, a Roman temple from around 4-7 CE, stands intact in Nimes city centre – intact not as in restored but as in the original structure with most of its columns and entablature, which is exceptional.

Uzes, 12 kilometres north of Pont du Gard, is a medieval town with a ducal palace still owned by the same family and a Saturday market that is among the best in the Languedoc for fresh produce and regional goods.

High season (July-August) brings full car parks and temperatures regularly above 35 degrees Celsius in the Gard gorge. May, June, and September are quieter and more comfortable. If you are combining with a longer trip through the region, staying in Uzes (Hotel Entraigues, EUR 100-150 per night) or Nimes (chain hotels, EUR 80-120) works well for an early morning arrival at the bridge before the day-trippers.