Pont de Pierre

Two of Bordeaux’s main bridges, the Pont de Pierre and Pont Jacques-Chaban-Delmas are also two of its main attractions. The first Pont de Pierre dominates the city’s card-postals with its picturesque 19th-century appearance & the second Pont Jacques-Chaban-Delmas for its futuristic style & its unique engineering operation. Pont de Pierre was completed in 1822 after being commissioned by Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte & until 1965 & the opening of Pont Saint-Jean was the only means of crossing the river.

Built by order of Napoleon himself, it has seventeen arches, in a nod to the number of letters appearing in the name of Napoleon Bonaparte. It will be for nearly 150 years the only bridge to unite the left bank, historic city, and the right bank, and its Bastide district.

Today overtaken by modernity and traversed by the tram, the stone bridge, built in stone and brick with the particularity of having interior empty spaces, must compete with half a dozen other crossing structures. It retains a special place in the collective memory of Bordeaux residents, who appreciate its elegance. They also have the custom of looking at its piles to observe the level of the tide.

Indeed, the Garonne in Bordeaux constitutes the avant-garde of the Atlantic Ocean, located nearly 100 km downstream, and marks the legal border between the maritime domain and the fluvial domain. Moreover, on windy days, you can hear the cry of the seagulls that have come to take refuge upstream from the estuary. The interior of the bridge can be visited once a year for European Heritage Days. The stone bridge has been listed as a historical monument since December 2002.