Passerelle du Collège and the View Over the Slopes

Why is it significant?

Step onto the gentle wooden planking of Passerelle du Collège, the only historic suspension footbridge preserved across the Rhône River in Lyon.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Step onto the gentle wooden planking of Passerelle du Collège, the only historic suspension footbridge preserved across the Rhône River in Lyon. Constructed in 1844 under the supervision of engineer Jean-Marie Seguin to allow students and professors of the prestigious Collège Royal—today's Lycée Ampère, founded by Jesuit scholars in 1519—to cross on foot without paying the expensive tolls demanded at Pont Morand, this graceful structure stretches one hundred and ninety metres across two rusticated Renaissance-revival stone piers. Suspended from bundles of twisted steel wire cables, the narrow deck sways with a rhythmic, elastic bounce beneath the footsteps of pedestrians and joggers, providing an exhilarating sense of walking directly above the swift turquoise current. Standing at mid-span, the vista looking northwest opens dramatically onto the natural amphitheatre of the Croix-Rousse slopes, where ochre tenements and slate roofs climb toward the sky like an Italian hillside town. The graceful metal cables anchor into deep masonry vaults built into the river embankments, engineered to withstand the tremendous hydrostatic pressures exerted during major flood stages. Pausing here in the middle of the footbridge offers an unmatched vantage point to watch racing sculls and kayaks glide across the water below. A refreshing breeze blows down the river corridor, carrying the coolness of alpine waters.

Feel the subtle elastic vibration of the suspended wooden deck beneath your shoes: this engineered structural flexibility allows the footbridge to absorb fierce mistral gales and seasonal thermal expansions without structural fatigue across more than a century and a half of use.

Destroyed by retreating German explosives on September 1, 1944, the beloved footbridge was painstakingly rebuilt to its original nineteenth-century design by municipal engineers and reopened to cheering schoolchildren in September 1945.

Look toward the right bank: the slate dome and baroque Jesuit chapel of the Lycée Ampère emerge above the rooftops, recalling that this historic academy educated literary giants Charles Baudelaire and Alphonse Daudet.

Continue walking north along the river promenade to reach the monumental road span of Pont Morand.