Jerry’s last post amusingly describes the experience of driving in France but, he did not say where we were driving to! We were tootling all over the place. One of our destinations was the Pont Du Gard a UNESCO world heritage listed site which amazes me. The Pont du Gard was built just before the Christian era so that the aqueduct of Nîmes could cross a river.
As an Aussie who has seen fire, flood, earthquake and drought in my life I am always a bit dazed at how Roman engineers and architects controlled nature. In the case of Pont du Gard they are controlling water to meet the need of a community. I appreciate the achievement but there is always an irrational feeling that nature can not be shaped to our will as it goes counter to my life experience. So when ever I encounter Roman engineering that accomplishes something like this I am always in awe of the fact that they did it but also it has stood a couple of thousand years. I know that is what humans do, but the child in me is always surprised to encounter it.
Anyway while Jerry scrambled over rocks to take photos of it I did some sketching. These thoughts filtered through my mind as I drew one section of the bridge in my travel journal. I chose to do a section as the structure is large and I need to realistic about time. This took me about an hour and half . This drawing is of part of the top section. If you click on the drawing you will see a larger version.
I added a postcard to the page spread of my travel journal to remind me of the monumental size, as this bridge stands almost 50m high and has three levels of arches.
If you are interested in this site there is very good article in Wikipedia about The Pont du Gard
