Pont Neuf

The name means "New Bridge", yet this is the oldest standing bridge across the Seine in Paris. Its first stone went down on 31 May 1578 under Henri III, and after long interruptions during the Wars of Religion the crossing was finished in 1606 and opened the following year under Henri IV. The design is credited to Baptiste Androuet du Cerceau and Guillaume Marchand. It strides over the western tip of the Île de la Cité in two uneven halves: seven arches link the island to the Right Bank and five to the Left, for a total length of about 232 metres and a width of 22.

What made it new in the early seventeenth century was not its age but its idea. Medieval Paris bridges were lined with houses; the Pont Neuf was built bare, with raised pavements that kept walkers clear of carts and horses, and with half-round bastions projecting over every pier. Those little balconies turned the bridge into a public stage, and for two centuries it was the busiest meeting place in the city, crowded with performers, quacks, tooth-pullers, recruiting sergeants and pickpockets; Peter the Great is said to have found nothing in Paris more curious. Standing in one of the bastions today still gives one of the best long views up and down the river, towards the Louvre on one side and the Conciergerie on the other.

Look down at the cornice. Running along both faces is a frieze of 381 stone masks, each one different: bearded satyrs, grinning woodland spirits, grotesque river gods. The originals were associated with the Renaissance sculptor Germain Pilon; what you see now are mostly nineteenth-century replacements carved during the rebuilding of 1851–1854, while a handful of the sixteenth-century originals survive in the Musée Carnavalet and the national Renaissance museum at Écouen. At the middle of the bridge rides Henri IV in bronze. Pietro Tacca completed the first statue in 1614, the Revolution melted it down in 1792, and François-Frédéric Lemot's replacement of 1818 was cast partly from a statue of General Desaix. Behind it, steps lead down to the Square du Vert-Galant, a willow-shaded garden at the prow of the island named after the king's reputation as a lover.

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.

Getting there

The bridge is in the 1st arrondissement, in the very centre of Paris. The nearest airport is Paris-Orly (ORY), about 14 km away; Paris-Charles de Gaulle serves most long-haul flights. The Pont Neuf métro station is at the Right Bank end of the bridge, and the embankments on both sides are easy to walk to from the Louvre, Saint-Michel and Châtelet.