grabbed a shot before the crowd arrivedI’m glad I wasn’t thirsty then. The water’s stopped! Call a plumber. Out of the more than 1 million, 250 thousand tourists who visit every year, there has got to be a plumber, mason ..draino. Well not to panic, the aqueduct has been inoperable since the 9th century due to maintance issues starting from the 4th century onwards. It’s nobody you or I knows fault. Whew!

In those days, I guess they didn’t have technicians to inspect the surface water system every 18 months. Eventually, the people of the area started taking the bridge apart stone by stone. Lucky for tourism, the majority of the Pont du Gard remains remarkably intact.

So as you might have guessed, the bridge is part of the aqueduct built around the year 50 to transport water from the Eure spring near Uzès to Nîmes, a distance of over 50 kilometers. The full aqueduct had a gradient of 34 cm/km (1/3000), descending only 17 m vertically in its entire length and delivering 20,000 cubic meters (44 million gallons) of water daily. That’s about what three major water treatment plants provide to 128,000 customers in Hillsborough County, Florida, today.

Considering how much money France has invested to keep the place looking intact, I’m sure this momument will still be standing when my children’s children stop for a visit. But it’s sad that such a place has to be run like Disney to keep it preserved, all the while the river beneath it gets erroded away from frequent floods.