Pont du Gard and the City of the Dead

Sunday in a Provenctial town can be very slow, so we decided to do some site seeing in the area.  There are a number of very complete Roman ruins so we got into the car and drove out of the maze that is Arles to see them.  The first site we saw was the Pont du Gard aquaduct.  Here are some pictures:

Here it is.  Those tiny dots underneth it are people.  It's big!

Here's James checking out an arch.  This structure is held up by nothing more than stone and pressure.  No morter binds the stones together.

Here's Kate from a look out point on the otherside of the aquaduct.  There are lots of little trails that you can hike around the structure.

This structure brought fresh water to the city of Nimes.  You can see the path the Roman water system took that traveled around a large mountain range.

Hike further into the hills and you'll find a number of small ruined structures that were part of this large water system.  It was a fun hike.  Around every hill there was something that looked like it was out of a Tolken book.

From Pont du Gard we traveled south east to Les Baux or the 'City of the Dead'!!!

Enjoy the pics:

Les Baux is carved into, out of, and on top of a rock 650 feet above the valley floor.  The area dates back to Roman times but the majority of ruins that now exists were used in the Middle Ages when Lords ruled the land.

Kate in the twisty streets of the village below the ruins. It is full of peoples homes, ceramic stores, and restaurants.

Once in the ruins, you're free to wander about and explore or watch some of their 'entertainment'.

They had a dog show for us in the square.  Four knighted border collies battled eachother, the evil 'Le Chat' (the evil cat), and jumped through hoops of fire all in the effort to become the crowned king.  You are witnessing the crowning in this picture.  We've never laughed so hard in France.

Here's a cool view from the top of the castle looking through the ruins at the village.

Here's a view of the agriculture in the valley below.  The olive trees you see growing here have their own AOC whch is how the French seem to categorize their agriculture business.

One last look and then we went back down off the cliffs and back to Arles.

All in all it was a pretty fun day.  The dog show was actually fun to watch and the history of everything was fun to discover.  Since we didn't have access to the internet for four days there's going to be a lot more coming quickly so stay tuned in.