Pont Du Gard, UNESCO World Heritage

Monkey looked upset when hotel concierge at Avignon informed that due to heavy rain, Pont du Gard has been closed for safety reason.

ARGHHHHHHH~~~~ so off we went to visit Chateauneuf du Pape on that day. And because we have the sweetest chauffeur on Earth who treated me like his daughter, Monkey whined and whined and ranted until he called this UNESCO World Heritage site if there's a slim chance of it being re-opened after a day of closure. Awwwww he's the best-est chauffeur ever!!!! and he hurried us back into the mercedes after lunch and headed south to Nimes.

in less than an hour we were here.

WOoooooHOOOOOO
HOOOOO
WOOOHOOOOO

Monkey did star jumps and leaped up and down.
another of my to do list, not just for this trip but in my LIFE :))))))

Pont du Gard was constructed between 40 to 60 AD. That makes it more than 2,000 years old. Built by the Romans to carry water *wat else* from the beautiful natural spring water in Uzes to Nimes. Until today, it is still the greatest construction of the Romans. It gotta be, still standing tall and high after so many years!!!

the Gardon River was murky after a heavy rain. U could see the water mark on this building. It was flooded much earlier due to a heavy rain fall in the middle of France. Large volume of water flowed down all the way south here hence this place was closed to visitors for a day. Gardon river flows into Rhone River, the largest river in France.

We were so lucky!!! so so so lucky!!!! despite the flood hahahahaha

No matter how great engineers the Romans were, there was still imperfection. notice the deformation? oh well I guess after a few thousand years there would be changes.

A closer look.....but don't forget this aqueduct was built between 40-60 AD and has survived numerous earthquakes and natural disaster. In addition it also has got two tier!

On Plan (viewed from the top), the aqueduct had a slight curvature probably to facilitate linking the two ends across the river. The construction must have been one of great complexity and is testimony of how great Engineers and problem solvers the Romans were. Looking at the scale of such a project and bearing in mind the safety consciousness during those times, my guess is a lot of workers died while building the structure.

a lil closer look at the curvature. Do take note of the "key stone" too.

I was fascinated by this ancient engineering but nothing beats Mr. JS who's an engineer himself was even more fascinated. His expertise while in university was the construction and calculation of bridges and spans and oh well I forgot wat u call them. So both of us were standing there in awe, speechless as our sweetest driver was also in awe snapping pics with his phone. hahahahahaha.

A lone olive tree that is probably as old as the Aqueduct!! Being so far south and having a warmer climate, the Romans also planted a lot of Olive trees to extract the oil within. By the way, this tree is still producing olives fruits today!

Arches were regarded as a "stable' shape. Its a common shape used throughout the ancient civilization in bridge construction. The principle of a continuous arch in this case made use of the neutralizing force create by the horizontal thrust exerted by the next set of arch which resulted in a very stable structure. If you look carefully at the top of each arch, you can see the "key stone". This is the last piece of stone put into place to hold up the structure. The lateral stability was provided by the thickness of the structure which employed the theory of "middle third law" and also the ability of the whole structure to behave monolithically as one. If any of you reading this post understand all this jargon, then you belong to the same faculty as JS.....Ingenieur!!  :)

the above paragraph was written by Mr. JS self proclaimed Genius Ingeniuer.
-_-"

Look at how tiny those ppl were and u'll have a feel and magnitude of its size!!! we were only at the middle tier. Imagine if u are standing at the bottom near the river?

Pic taken fr an ancient cave over looking the aqueduct

We didn't snap pic of the inside of this cave but it's prehistoric dating back to 50,000 to 80,000 BC. Yes it's BC!!!! with paintings and fossils of animals, plants and Palaeolithic tools.

I'm so glad we managed to come here. That means, never ever give up in ur dreams. JS said more like never ever keep pestering. I know I can be very strong minded *more like stubborn*. If I wanna do something I will do it and have it :)))))

Read about the other great aqueduct built by the Romans. We visited it in Segovia in 2012
The Aqueduct in Segovia

our journey in Segovia

The Broken Bridge of Avignon - Pont Saint Benezet

When we arrived at Avignon via the speedy TGV train from Lyon, the weather looked threatening. Anytime the sky will open up and rain all it wants...somehow we didn't let this grey sky deterred us from getting out from out hotel - which was again a really nice boutique hotel. JS was so delighted upon checking in bcoz we have the whole barn to ourselves. Yes we stayed in a barn like hee-haww minus the hay. The property converted the barn into a really nice luxurious suite. Anyway posting on our barn, I mean our hotel another time.


Monkey was so eppy!!! we are here!!! we are here in Avignon in front of Pont d'Avignon and started dancing and singing and circling around.

JS -_-"

Okie I wasn't the only one doin it. Those who grew up with sur le Pont d'Avignon will know this song....u'll notice French/local tourist will do the dance underneath this bridge. By the way it's a 16th century song. I lurve it!!! I know...I have a really old soul inside me.

Recently I heard this song again during my French Language lesson at home. My private tutor made me dance and he sang. LOL and nope I did not but he sang so nicely coz this is how he sang to his child as she sleeps beautifully :))))))) 

JS called it the broken bridge of Avignon~~~~ bcoz seriously from engineering point of view, there's too many flaws in the construction of this bridge that now became a world heritage site. JS concluded that the French can't build bridges as good as the Romans!!!!

Hahahaha and yes I had a good discourse on construction of bridges at this visit. JS was a civil engineer or he called himself the sh*t engineer. From the design and constructions of buildings, bridges, canals, sewage??? hence the term sh*t engineer!!! LOL but his passion is still bridges so this lil Pont d'Avignon makes such an excellent study.

Today there's only 3 arches left. During its glory time, there were 22 arches, spanning not just across the 2 islets/islands but over to the far far land with another castle on top of the hill. Oh well u can't see it from the pic here.

The river was muddy on that day from the rain the nite before.

This bridge was called Pont Saint Benezet officially. Locals and tourists prefer it to be called Pont d'Avignon after that popular song. :)))

built in 1177, yes that's 837 years old. Seriously it isn't that old compared to many other monuments that are still standing tall and majestic in Europe. That's why JS said this bridge has got a lot of flaws.

Don't jump my dear!!! it's just some imperfection on this bridge....errrr yeah I guess there's quite some imperfection there for it to collapsed like this. JS explained it isn't something like imperfection of an art piece. It's major engineering failure. And to further understand this, I took the audio guide with me.


Look at the horror face!!! as I was listening as to why the bridge collapsed.

Hello Butler!!! I am hungry....please fetch some ham sandwich and a bottle of crisp chilled Rhone White wine. I don't mind a picnic here :)))))))

The view is rather beautiful here. We spent almost 1.5 hours on this broken bridge. There's also a small chapel here.

Titanic???
kekekekeke nope I am not gonna jump, the water looked muddy after the heavy rain with a lot of debris floatin around. Afterall this is the main Rhone River so everything from Lake Geneva flows all the way through here into the Mediterranean sea.

JS waited for everyone and every single tourist to be out of sight before snapping this pic. Great job!!

WAHHHHHHH I'm terrified of heights!!!!
Hmmm the opposite side is just the islet, not even the mainland yet. So this broken bridge passed through 2 islets on the Rhone River before reaching the other side. That's about 900m, almost a kilometre long.

Then we decided we should come back for a lil picnic...oh not on the bridge but on the other green green side at the islet itself!!! oh well Avignon isn't that big, we went everywhere on foot for 5 days here.

from the end of the broken bridge u could see the Palais des Papes, the "Vatican of Christianity" for official 6 Popes and 3 unofficial ones, so a total of 9. Heh heh heh aren't u surprised that 6 popes resided here and "ruled" from this Huge fortress in Avignon, South of France.

More info to come in separate posting on Palais des Papes.

hey the rain isn't here yet and here I was walking around with my umbrella~~~~
the sun continued to shine for the rest of the day.

and went around exploring Avignon until the sun said goodbye for the day. It's such a lovely city~~~we didn't expect so much from a small medieval ancient town. We decided to come here all because of winery visit at Chateauneuf-du-Pape. So it's really worth making the trip down here.

Watch this space for more of our lil adventure down south of France!!!!