Rain on the Pont du Gard

Aqueducts never fail to amaze me. It's such a feat of engineering. Not so much the arches and such, the romans did a lot of arches and obviously had to know how to build bridges. No, I'm amazed by the parts you don't see. The Pont du Gard is a massive aqueduct spanning a valley with a river in the bottom. Except it's actually just a tiny part of the aqueduct. The Pont du Gard is about 130m long. The Nimes aqueduct was about 50km long. And the whole way it has an average gradient of 25 cm per kilometre. Because if the slope is much more than that the water moves too quickly and will spill over but much less and it won't  move fast enough. So the big bridge part is impressive because that's what they needed to build to keep it going at the right angle, but they kept the angle right the whole way, and the land wasn't always leaning in the right direction. All to get water to Nimes. So that's your lesson in classical engineering for the day. And next time you see pictures of those towering arches of aqueducts remember that that is just the visible part.
Sorry about the mini lecture, I just find it really interesting and had to share. Now that Catie is gone I don't have anyone to vent my amazement on.
As you may have guessed I visited the Pont du Gard aqueduct yesterday. It's about a half an hour away from the city of Nîmes which has a bunch of other really well preserved examples of Roman architecture including the Maison Caree (a temple from Augustus' time) and an amphitheatre from the 2nd century AD which is in such good condition that it has been fitted out with lights and benches so that it can still be used.
So I wandered around Nîmes in the morning and saw the main sights in the city as well as the museum of archaeology and natural history (it was free) which had no signs in English and a lot of not very good taxidermy. I mean a lot (and am also now thinking about an alot of taxidermy and it is scary).
In the afternoon I grabbed a bus to the Pont du Gard. It was pretty awesome. Then as I was heading back from the actual bridge toward the entrance (it's a bit of a walk) it started pouring down. I had been warned that it might rain so I was wearing my jacket but I got pretty drenched anyway. It was wet and cold and lovely. I have missed the rain.
Caught the bus back to Nimes (with a pause in the middle to watch some large vehicle ballet when a truck in front of us failed to get around a tight corner on a skinny village road and then our bus had to get around it on the road which would hardly fit 2 normal cars let alone a truck and a bus). By the time I got back I was mostly dry so I decided to keep going and went to find the gardens of the fountain and climb the hill to the tour magne.
So I had a pretty full day but managed to see pretty much everything there is to see in Nimes. Then this morning I caught a train to Marseille.
So far Marseille is lovely but very windy. I climbed up to the basilica at the top of the hill this afternoon and practically felt like I was going to be blown off the hill it was so windy. Mostly I just wandered the city around the vieux port. Looked for cheap sunglasses because mine did a very impressive vanishing act at the Pont du Gard (I know where I had them and I know where I didn't have them and I only went one place in between but they weren't there). Met a random french guy who thought I was lost but then we had a whole conversation about how France is going to lose on Sunday. Now I think it's time to eat.
Talk to you again soon.