Pont Alexandre III: A Tsar's Bridge
Why is it significant?
Walk out onto the bridge and you are surrounded by gold: winged horses on tall stone pillars at each corner, cherubs, sea monsters, garlands, lamp posts dripping with bronze. Across the water the golden dome of the Invalides glows.
Key Facts
| Place | Pont Alexandre III: A Tsar's Bridge |
|---|---|
| Address | Pont Alexandre III, 75008 Paris, France |
| Geo Coordinates | 48.86380, 2.31350 |
| Part of Walk | Triumph and Guillotine: The Champs-Élysées from the Arc de Triomphe to Concorde, Paris |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk out onto the bridge and you are surrounded by gold: winged horses on tall stone pillars at each corner, cherubs, sea monsters, garlands, lamp posts dripping with bronze. Across the water the golden dome of the Invalides glows. This is the most theatrical bridge in Paris, and it was built for a diplomatic love affair.
In the 1890s France and Russia, a republic and an absolute monarchy, signed an alliance against the growing power of Germany. To seal the friendship, the young Tsar Nicholas the Second came to Paris in October 1896 and laid the first stone of this bridge himself, naming it after his father, Alexander the Third, who had made the alliance. A year later, the French president laid the first stone of a bridge in Saint Petersburg in return.
Now look over the side. The bridge crosses the Seine in a single steel arch, more than a hundred metres long, and it is astonishingly low. That was a strict condition: it must not block the view between the Champs-Élysées and the dome of the Invalides. The engineers had to make the arch so flat that it was one of the boldest of its time.
At the centre of the arch, on each side, look for two nymphs in hammered copper. Upstream, the nymphs of the Seine with the arms of Paris. Downstream, the nymphs of the Neva, the river of Saint Petersburg, with the arms of Russia. Two rivers, holding hands across Europe.
The alliance itself ended in blood: France and Russia went to war together in 1914, and three years later the son who laid this stone was overthrown, and in 1918 he was killed with his family. The bridge outlived the empire it celebrated. In 2024 the Olympic triathletes dived into the Seine just beside it. Now follow the riverside promenade upstream, the Cours la Reine, towards the great open square ahead.