The Most Beautiful Bridges in France
5 places · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful bridges in France are Pont Saint-Bénézet, Pont Neuf and Pont Alexandre III. The list covers 5 bridges. Last updated 14 October 2026.
France has built beautiful bridges in every age since the Romans, and its rivers carry the whole sequence. Medieval towns raised stone bridges with chapels and towers, because a crossing was both a source of tolls and a point to defend; the Belle Époque, with new steel and a taste for spectacle, turned the bridge into a showpiece of sculpture and gilding. The results sit in very different landscapes, from the Rhône to the Seine to the Lot.
The Pont Saint-Bénézet in Avignon, the bridge of the children's song, now ends in mid-river after four surviving arches, with a small Romanesque chapel on one pier. The Pont Alexandre III in Paris, built for the 1900 Exposition, spans the Seine in a single low steel arch, its pylons topped by gilded winged figures. The Pont Valentré in Cahors, begun in the early fourteenth century, crosses the Lot on six pointed arches beneath three tall square towers, a fortified bridge with a legend that the devil helped to build it.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pont Saint-Bénézet | Bridge | ✓ |
| 2 | Pont Neuf | Bridge | |
| 3 | Pont Alexandre III | Bridge | |
| 4 | Pont de Normandie | Bridge | |
| 5 | Pont Valentré | Bridge |
01 Pont Saint-Bénézet
Pont d'Avignon
France · 39 km from Nîmes43.954° N 4.805° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Rolf Kranz · CC BY-SA 4.0 The song made the bridge famous worldwide. A tune with the same title was already popular in the 16th century, but the modern version comes from an 1853 comic opera by Adolphe Adam. Since 1995 the bridge has been part of the UNESCO-listed historic centre of Avignon with the Palace of the Popes and the cathedral.
Did you know? Besides the four standing arches, the only visible trace of the bridge is masonry from pier 11, attached to a private building on the Île de la Barthelasse.
02 Pont Neuf
France · 0.8 km from Paris48.858° N 2.342° E
Image by edmondlafoto from Pixabay The bridge was listed as a historic monument in 1889 and restored stone by stone between 1994 and 2007. In 1985 Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapped it entirely in fabric, one of their best-remembered works. Come early in the morning or at dusk, when the pale limestone takes on the colour of the sky and the masks throw long shadows.
03 Pont Alexandre III
Pont Alexandre-III
France · 3 km from Paris48.864° N 2.314° E
Image by jpnanterre from Pixabay The bridge has been a listed historic monument since 1975, and it remains the obvious place to understand what Paris in 1900 wanted to say about itself: confidence, alliance and craft, all at once.
Did you know? Foundations were sunk with pressurised caissons, and the work caused 29 cases of decompression sickness, one of them fatal.
04 Pont de Normandie
France · 14.7 km from Le Havre49.432° N 0.274° E
Image by Tama66 from Pixabay The bridge links two very different towns. On the north bank lies Le Havre, the great port city flattened in 1944 and rebuilt to the plans of the architect Auguste Perret, whose concrete centre is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. On the south bank is Honfleur, a small harbour of tall slate-hung houses that drew Boudin, Monet and other painters in the nineteenth century. Between them, the mudflats and reed beds under the bridge form part of a protected estuary landscape, rich in wading birds, where the river's tides and the sea meet.
Did you know? The bridge was designed by the French engineer Michel Virlogeux.
05 Pont Valentré
France44.445° N 1.432° E
Vassil · Public domain Cahors itself, capital of the Lot department and historic heart of the Quercy, sits inside a tight meander of the river, ringed by dry limestone hills. Founded by the Romans as Divona, it was the birthplace of Pope John XXII and is known for its dark Malbec-based wine and for the Romanesque Saint-Étienne Cathedral. The bridge, now open only to people on foot, is the emblem of the town.
Did you know? Its main pointed arches each span about 16.5 metres, and sharp cutwaters on the upstream side of the piers split the river's current.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful bridges in France?
- On our list, Pont Saint-Bénézet ranks first, followed by Pont Neuf and Pont Alexandre III.
- Why does the Pont d'Avignon stop in the middle of the river?
- Floods of the Rhône repeatedly swept away its arches, and in the seventeenth century the town stopped rebuilding them. Only four of the original arches survive.
- Who is the Pont Alexandre III named after?
- It honours Tsar Alexander III of Russia and celebrated the Franco-Russian alliance. His son, Tsar Nicholas II, laid the foundation stone in 1896.
- How many bridges are on this list in France?
- The list covers 5 bridges.