pont Saint-Bénézet
— — four arches, where there were once twenty-two.
Not only on a wall.
“Begun in 1177 and finished in 1185, by tradition at the bidding of a shepherd named Bénézet. Once a nine-hundred-metre span of twenty-two arches across the Rhône, the bridge was repeatedly washed away by floods and finally abandoned in the seventeenth century. Four arches remain, ending in mid-river, with the small chapel of Saint Nicholas on the second pier. The song carried the rest.
pont Saint-Bénézet, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Pont Saint-Bénézet crosses part of the Rhône at Avignon, in the Vaucluse department of southern France. Built between 1177 and 1185, the original bridge spanned roughly nine hundred metres on twenty-two stone arches, the longest river crossing in medieval Europe for almost a century. Centuries of flooding on the Rhône repeatedly damaged the structure; after a major collapse in 1668 the city abandoned repair. Four arches survive on the Avignon bank. The bridge forms part of the UNESCO Historic Centre of Avignon, inscribed in 1995.
The surviving arches are pale Burdigalian limestone quarried from the hills west of Avignon, laid in courses that have weathered to a soft ochre under the Provençal sun. The piers were set on timber pile foundations driven into the river bed, a technique that proved insufficient against the Rhône's recurring floods. The small Chapel of Saint Nicholas sits on the second pier, with a Romanesque lower level and a Gothic upper storey added in the fourteenth century, both still consecrated. Saint Bénézet himself was, by tradition, buried inside the chapel.
The bridge is reached from within the walls of Avignon's old town, beside the Palais des Papes; the entry sits at the riverside Porte du Rocher. A combined ticket with the Palais des Papes covers admission and an audio guide in a dozen languages. Opening hours run roughly nine to seven in summer and shorten to ten to five in winter; the gate closes briefly at midday off-season. Spring and early autumn offer the best light on the limestone, after the mistral has cleared the haze from the river.