Uzes is literally a gem of a town about 30 minutes drive from Barjac. It is like one of those large graphites that look completely uninteresting from the outside until it is cracked open to reveal its hidden cave of coloured, glistening angles of sparkling delight. Around the nugget centre tree lined streets surround the old town walls. These house the ordinary day to day shops & offices with tabacconists rubbing shoulders with bars & banks & bakers & butchers & candlestick makers.

Narrow alleys duck under the stone work to enter the market place revealing a space filled with restaurants, cafes & milk shake bars, classy fashion shops and bustling tourists & locals going about their business. At night the lights in the trees & musical buskers add extra atmosphere to the smell of good food and the hum of happy conversations.

The Pont du Gard carried water for the Romans to Nimes to service their baths & villas. Amazing to think this aquaduct has settled here for two thousand years. It seems unbreakable as visitors scuttle around its pillars & arches which stand grand and proud between the tall banks of the Gard. Canoes like colonies of maggots wriggle their way along the river & under the clutches of the Roman guards as they make their way downstream scraping their bottoms on the stones & rocks of the near empty waters. It has been a long time since any rain fell in the region. Maybe they should resurrect the aquaduct & pipe it in from the north!!