Thurs Oct 12 was our first full day in Uzes and we hit the ground running. We would see the great Roman aqueduct at Pont du Gard as well as the town of Avignon. But first let me give some background on why this area is so so rich in cool stuff to see. Background did you say? Isn't that another word for History? Yep, I'm at it again, force feeding you my interest in History. I'll make it brief. Sort of. So when Rome defeated Carthage in the Punic Wars the areas that had been in the Carthaginian Empire fell to Rome. This included southern France and this was well before the Caesars took over as emperors. The Romans began to make their mark from this early date and by the time Julius Caesar conquered the rest of Gaul in 52 BC the area from Uzes south had already been absorbed into Roman civilization. The Roman's love of big building projects is on display and many of them are remarkably well preserved. Then when Rome fell, the Franks moved in and built their feudal society, based on much more local, decentralizes power, so the castles and walled towns popped up. They are still there too. And the monasteries!! Lots of those and you all know I love monasteries! On top of that the Pope moved to Avignon in 1309 so there's this rich layer of Church history as well. 

The jarring thing about all of this is the density of it. Everything we saw, and everything you will see in this entire blog, is within 60 miles of Uzes. Nothing more than 90 minutes away and that's taking the backroads. Several days we took in two sites. Like today. We will first see the Pont du Gard, the highest aqueduct the Romans built anywhere, and then drive over to Avignon for the rest of the day. Shall we begin?

As I mentioned, the Pont du Gard is the highest aqueduct the Romans ever built. It was completed in mid first century and took 1000 men five years. The aqueduct system was bringing water from Uzes to Nimes, the provincial headquarters. Quite an impressive piece of engineering but the really impressive little factoid is that the spring at Uzes is only 56 ft above the collection basin at Nimes 31 miles away This slight gradient had to be maintained along the entire route to keep the water flowing. So the three tier structure you see below, with the massive limestone blocks, had to be accurate to a fraction of an inch.

_8507531 _8507556 _8507569 Does anyone out there know what to do with a little dog like this? He's messing up my reflections.

_8507581 There. That's better.

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Just a short jaunt down the road is the medieval town of Avignon. Its location on the Rhone river made it a strategic spot during feudal times. The main interest now is the Papal Palace but it was such a gorgeous day, and it was getting late, that we decided to forgo that tour and just walk around the town. We would come back on a rainy day to check out the Pope's digs.

_8500141 Above is the south gate to the medieval town.

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_8507783 Above is the Papal Palace.

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_8507817 _8507820 _8507823 With that we headed home for some good red wine. Pretty good first day.