Agen – The Garonne River and its Aqueduct

This postcard may or may not belong to my grandpa’s collection. The fact that I didn’t scan the text on the back may mean that it’s not one of his, and just a card I bought somewhere as it depicts my hometown, Agen.

There are two notable things here. First, obviously, the washerwomen. I’m actually surprised that the Garonne river was used to wash the laundry. I guess it was much cleaner in these days (it’s not that bad nowadays, nevertheless, in this day and age, I doubt any large river is clean enough to use for laundry.)

The second thing in the background is the aqueduct that allows the Canal de Garonne to cross the river (we simply call it the “canal bridge”). Growing up there, I always took this structure for granted, but it’s actually pretty unique as it’s not a road or a railway that crosses the river but another waterway. Nowadays, the aqueduct itself hasn’t changed a bit (it dates from the 1840s by the way) but the river banks look very different. First, the river was encased to help prevent floods that were common in the past, even in my childhood, and later a road was built there to go around the city and not necessarily go through it when crossing it.

I have a few more details (and more contemporary pictures of the aqueduct) in this post:

Agen, France