Day 84."What did the Romans do for us?" "ah, the aqueduct?"18th September

Spent the orning doing a quick wander around Nimes. Saw the Mason Carree, a preserved Roman temple from around AD5 to honour Agustus's two adopted sons. Survived as a meeting hall during the Middle Ages, then a private residence, then a church, then after the Revolution it was an archive.

We phone ahead and booked our accomodation for Nice, heading straight there with a quick stop at Pont Du Gard on the way. The Pont du Gard is a World Heritage site, a well preserved, 3 tiered Roman aqueduct. Once 50km long, the aqueduct brought 20,000 cubic metres of water per day from near the town of Uzes to near Nimes. 35 arches run 50m above the river, getting smaller in size from each tier. The gradient from start to finish is ridiculous. Only a few cm different in gradient from start to finish over 50kms, and it did the job with perfect precision. All in 19BC! Amazing. To see it, it looks just like an arched bridge, not an aqueduct 2000 years old. I can't belive how forward they were back then.
It was a big aqueduct all right, and after walking along and taking the usual photos there wasn't much to do with it. So we then drove straight to Nice.

Cannes and St Tropez are west along the coast, and Monaco is to the east. Nice is in the middle. We decided to have set place to stay, centre ourselves and do the other towns in day trips. (Plus all the other towns are really expensive). We got a self-catering unit in the centre of town for $48 euro a night. Bargain! When we turned up, it really was a bargain as it had a back bedroom, then a balcony/kitchen area and bathroom. Overlooking a car park and kind of run down, but I was delighted!
We got thrilled by the idea of 'cooking' rather than eating out after three months. So we went nuts buyin eggs, olives, cheese, bread, cereal and wine. (Bordeaux wine for $2 - but not crap as the expensive ones are way cheap too). We've also taken to olives since travelling away. We popped it all in the fridge and went on the internet for 3 hours, as it was directlyunder our apartment (and a laundromat on the square - bonus!)
The area felt dogy and the restaurants were all closed as it was monday. We didn't want to walk in the dark to old town where the action is, so I ended up cooking us eggs for dinner. hee hee.
Bed.