Whenever I visited my mother living in Carpentras, it was our habit in the afternoon to go for a little car tour in the vicinity. This region of Provence is a delight to explore and Carpentras is centrally located among countless charming villages and towns.
On the days we decided to head north out of town, we would pass the remains of the Carpentras Aqueduct. It was built in the years between 1720 and 1734. With 47 arches, the aqueduct spans 720 meters (over 2350 feet) and stands 24 meters (79 feet) tall at its highest point. The width at the top is 1.75 meters (under 6 feet), while the water canal itself is only .25 meters (10 inches) wide.
Carpentras, 2005
The source of the water that supplied Carpentras up to 1893 is on the slope of Mont Ventoux. On one of the days I stopped to capture this grand aqueduct, I also got an unusually clear view of the white capped mountain; no that is not snow, but bright white limestone, giving it a wintry look throughout the year.
Another stretch, perhaps, for Louis' Sunday Bridges. I'm always amazed and delighted at the different kinds of bridges there are around our globe.
20 comments:
Great photos and story! I'd love to see that place in person some day! thanks so much for the tour!
Wow, that's beautiful. We're going to be in the South of France in the spring, so I'll bookmark this and file it under travel.
Thanks!
K
A very elegant bridge - I'm always amazed at what people could build without the use of modern machinery.
The arches are amazing with such wide walls. Beautiful place.
An interesting reportage on a beautiful aqueduct, it must be a pleasure to follow its path in this countryside.
I just don't understand what you mean for a water canal 11 meters wide. Usually in these cases the real water canal isn't much more than 20/30cm at best...
tall and elegant--i love this, Francisca. the fist photo is beautifully composed, too.
Yes, I agree with Jenny and sometimes I think they did such better jobs. Lovely set of photos provençales.
@VP... Grazie tanto! This is what I get for doing my posts at 3 in the morning! I have researched some more and although the stats are not consistent on several web sites, I've changed my post.
Carpentras wasn't too far from routes I had taken when I was a student on backpack bag touring northern Europe down to Port Bou, France, to northern Spain (places like Muros, Noya, Cee, Santiago de Compostela, Carnota--amazing places where I did a lot of drawings on cogon-abaca paper in 1982-> (http://glennbautista.com/art/cogonabacadrawings.html) - - when I was a student, then, in Dusseldorf, Germany at the Kunstakademie. Went through southern France, too, by way of Nice on my way to Italy, hopping to Corfu to spend some months in the many islands of Greece. What an exciting place your MOM lives in! I had seen remains of aqueducts Nero built then without which they wouldn't have water sourced from a remote place. I can, now, imagine the grandeur of aqueducts you are writing about in Carpentras. Thanks for sharing, Iska.
Aqueducts are amazing examples of human ingenuity! Neat photos!
This is really great. I love the look of old aquaducts but I've only seen them in photos. I going on vacation soon and I hope to see one for myself.
It is wonderful to look at and think about!
Your top photo really shows the immense grand scale!
The science behind aqueducts is a bit beyond me, unfortunately.
The aquaduct itself is beautiful as are your pictures. Wonderful.
the wildlife I mention on my post are mostly and hopefully native critters and others too, from the tiniest bug to evern a coyote and all inbetween. and maybe a Black Bear. Water critters too. It is a nice place to explore and take pics. MB
These are just lovely pictures! That is such a large aqueduct! Funny that the canal is only 10 inches wide! I love your photo of the mountain.
Next time we go to France, we'll have to visit this area. It's all so beautiful...I think the aqueduct is the icing on the cake.
Thanks for all your nice and funny comments!
I was going to comment on your comment about differences in mothers...my mother always said, "Eat, don't you know children in Africa are starving"?
Well, she didn't always say that; only sometimes...
Great shots of a marvellous aqueduct!
I want to see it for real!
Thanks for sharing;o)
***
Have a beautiful week*******
I find aqueducts so fascinating, especially the old Roman ones. Fantastic ingenuity and engineering.
Oh, I love aqueducts! Reminds me to feature some I photographed in Portugal.
Nice shots!
http://thepaganeye.blogspot.com/2010/10/sunday-bridges_09.html
Post a Comment