Pont de la Tournelle, Paris

The Pont de la Tournelle, the Tournelle Bridge, in Paris, began as a wooden bridge built in 1620. It was washed away by ice in 1637, and again on 21 January 1651.

A stone bridge was built in its place in 1654. It was demolished in 1918 and replaced by the current bridge in 1928, after it suffered several natural disasters, especially the flood of 1910.

The Pont de la Tournelle was intentionally built lacking symmetry, to emphasize the shapeless landscape of that particular part of the Seine river. Consisting of a grand central arch that links the riverbanks via two smaller arches, one on each side, it is decorated on the eastern bank with a pylon that has a statue of Saint Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris, on top of it.

Numerous scenes of Highlander: The Series were filmed along the Quai de la Tournelle near and underneath Pont de la Tournelle between 1992 and 1998.

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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