Pont du Gard

Sleeping five minutes from the bridge

Vers-Pont-du-Gard is the quarrymen's village: the aqueduct's stone comes from here, and the trail through the old quarries leads to the bridge in forty minutes on foot. L'Oustal Di Fabre, on Rue des Escanaux, is a farmhouse in this village: patio, pool, four bedrooms, fireplace, and the bakery six minutes' walk away.

It is the house for long tables: up to eleven people, several families, a birthday. In the morning the bridge is five minutes by car and nearly empty; in the afternoon the Gardon flows at the foot of the arches for a swim.

Around

Castillon-du-Gard and Collias are ten minutes away, Uzès twenty, Nîmes and Avignon thirty. The Gardon gorges start at Collias, where canoe hire companies offer the descent to the bridge. Mas de Patou and La Jungle d'Uzès are two other bases twenty minutes from the site.

When to come

Summer for the water, spring and autumn for walking, winter for the fireplace and a bridge with nobody on it.