Nîmes, Uzès and the Pont du Gard

Across the Rhône from Avignon lies the Gard, a département with a heavy Roman inheritance, and this full-day small-group tour links its three best places. Nîmes is the big prize: a lively city whose Roman monuments include the Maison Carrée, a first-century temple that is one of the best-preserved in the world, and the Arena, a two-thousand-year-old amphitheatre that still hosts events. The Jardins de la Fontaine, an eighteenth-century garden built around a Roman sanctuary and spring, add a shaded green interlude. From Nîmes the route continues to Uzès, a golden-stone hill town with a medieval tower, a ducal palace, narrow lanes and a main square lined with arcades, which feels more like a village than a city. The day ends at the Pont du Gard, the three-tier Roman aqueduct that carried water to Nîmes across the river Gardon valley. The sequence is clever because the aqueduct was built to feed the city, so you see the supply line and the destination on the same day. Nîmes even gave the world a word: denim takes its name from the phrase for cloth from Nîmes. This is an excellent choice for first-time visitors to the region who enjoy history and want a guide to handle the route.

What you get from the tour depends on how you like to travel. If you want depth, Nîmes alone could fill a day, so choose this if you prefer a sampler. The tour gives time to look at the Maison Carrée and walk around the Arena, and a guide explains how Roman engineers moved water from springs near Uzès to the city across about fifty kilometres, dropping just a few centimetres per hundred metres along the way.

In Uzès, the best plan is to wander without a plan: climb to the viewpoints, sit in the arcaded square and look into the shop windows. If your day falls on a Wednesday or Saturday morning, Uzès holds a popular open-air market, though the tour page will say how the schedule handles it.

Plan around the weather. The Gard is hot in July and August, when the stone and the pavements amplify the heat, and a full day of walking can be tiring, so start with water and a hat. Spring and autumn are the most comfortable seasons. In winter the stone can feel cold, and some monuments have shorter hours, but the sights are quiet.

Wear comfortable shoes with a good grip for cobbles and Roman stone. Check whether the tour price includes the monument tickets or only the transport and guide, since entry to the Arena and Maison Carrée, and the Pont du Gard visitor area, are usually paid separately.

There is some overlap with other plans, so choose carefully. If you have already booked a Pont du Gard visit with a museum ticket, you may prefer a trip that includes only Nîmes and Uzès on its own. If you want a Roman theme with a smaller scale, the Orange theatre is a short train ride from Avignon.

If you want hilltop villages and vineyards instead of Roman stone, the Luberon and Châteauneuf-du-Pape days are better matches. For travellers who enjoy ancient history, markets and a small-town atmosphere in the same day, this tour is hard to beat.