Pont du Gard - Roman Aquaduct engineering marvel

This morning we awoke to a little light mist, which is about as unpleasant as the weather has been to us for quite some days, I am loving this south of France climate in October.

It is getting noticeably cooler at night though, and some heating is needed in the mornings.

The mist had burnt off by the sun's rays by about 10am when Louis and I set off for the Pont du Gard, and another beautifully warm and sunny day followed.

It's about a mile and a half from our parkup along a well made up cycle path.

The three levels of stone arches are quite impressive, set in the surrounding countryside with the river Gardon running below.

I've seen lots photographs of people swimming and kayaking in the river, but no chance at the moment, the river level is far too low.

It must have been quite an engineering marvel when it was first built by those talented Romans, to carry drinking water from natural springs to the important Roman outpost town of Nimes.

Today a cycle / walking route passes over on the lower level and there what appear to be very old vehicle scrape marks in the stone at the sides. I guess at some time in the past vehicles used this as a shortcut until someone decided it was inappropriote.

It is possible to climb up to the top level but there is no access to walk across on the upper levels.

When we left Avignon yesterday, we said goodbye to Provence when we crossed the river Rhône which marks the end of that region and the border with Languedoc-Roussillon.

Our next planned stop after a visit to Lidl, was at La Roque-sur-Cèze, situated on the river Cèze and I guess the village is the La Roque bit of its name, on the rock.

It is indeed perched on a rock.

We had an interesting drive here.

Google maps was struggling, I was aware of a narraow bridge into the village over the river Cèze and I kept trying to set a route to avoid it, google maps had other ideas though and kept re-routing us, eventually bringing us to the narrow bridge, grrr.

Another couple in a French motorhome were having the same problem and after chatting to establish we were both trying to get to the same place, and Mrs Frenchlady had an old school paper map, they were confident they knew the way, so we followed them.

Eventually we arrived, it was quite a detour, especially given that where we chatted was only a six minute walk to where we both wanted to be, but it looks a very nice place, so worth the effort.

After tea we took our evening doggie walk to Cascades du Sautadet which apart from the village is the other big attraction here, and I must say they are very impressive waterfalls.

However, numerous signs in the location tell of imminent death to anyone who dare to go for a dip.

I wasn't tempted to challenge this.

Beautiful but dangerous.

Tomorrow we will explore the hillside village.

Some views of Cascades du Sautadet

The Geologists will know the name for this feature, where hard pebbles are swirled around a depression by the river in the softer limestone creating an almost perfect circular pool, I can't remember what they're called.
There were lots of these similar features here.