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Some twenty kilometres from Nimes, the Pont du Gard is the greatest surviving stretch of a fifty-kilometre-long aqueduct built by the Romans in the middle of the first century to supply fresh water to the city. With just a seventeen-metre difference in altitude between start and finish, the aqueduct was quite an achievement, running as it does up hill and down dale, through a tunnel, along the top of a wall, cut into trenches, and over rivers; the Pont du Gard carries it over the River Gard. Today the bridge is something of a tourist trap, but nonetheless a supreme piece of engineering, a brilliant combination of function and aesthetics. It made the impressionable Rousseau wish he'd been born Roman. Three tiers of arches span the river, with the covered water conduit on the top, rendered with a special plaster waterproofed with a paint apparently based on fig juice. A visit here used to be a must for French journeymen masons on their traditional tour of the country, and many of them have left their names and home towns carved on the stonework. Markings made by the original builders are still visible on individual stones in the arches, such as "FR S III - frons sinistra", front side left no. 3. The Pont du Gard has recently undergone a massive restoration programme and work is now starting on improving the local amenities, including a historical museum planned for the summer of 2002
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