The gilded Pegasus groups
Four gilt-bronze Fames restraining winged horses atop 17-metre towers — they catch the sun from every corner of the city.
Jebulon — CC0 · Agence Rol. Agence photographique (commanditaire) — Public domain · Agence Rol. Agence photographique (commanditaire) — Public domain · Agence Rol — Public domain
Make it your crossing between Les Invalides and the Grand/Petit Palais, or the riverside finale of a Champs-Élysées stroll — crossing it IS visiting it.
From the lower quay on the Grand Palais side you frame the whole bridge with the golden dome and Eiffel Tower behind — the angle travel magazines choose.
It honours Tsar Alexander III, who sealed the Franco-Russian alliance of 1892; his son Nicholas II laid the foundation stone — 19th-century diplomacy immortalised in steel and gold.
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Paris has thirty-seven bridges over the Seine, and only one everybody agrees is the most beautiful: Alexandre III, the Franco-Russian alliance's gift, opened for the 1900 World's Fair and named for the Russian tsar. A single low steel arch crosses the river lightly, topped by ranks of copper lamp-posts and guarded at both ends by four stone towers crowned with gleaming gilded Pegasus horses. Every centimetre is ornamented: bronze river nymphs at mid-span, garlands along the arches, winged lions at the approaches — the apex of Parisian Beaux-Arts style and the most filmed, wedding-shot, photo-shooted bridge in existence. Its position is a gift in itself: it links the Invalides esplanade to the Grand and Petit Palais, so you cross it en route between them and collect two views from the middle — the Eiffel Tower west, the Conciergerie east. Sunset here, when the gold ignites above the towers, is one of Paris's cheapest and grandest moments.
Four gilt-bronze Fames restraining winged horses atop 17-metre towers — they catch the sun from every corner of the city.
From the middle: Eiffel Tower and golden dome one way, the Île de la Cité the other — the photo spot that never disappoints.
At mid-arch on either face, two bronze nymphs bear the arms of Paris and of Saint Petersburg — the alliance the bridge was born to seal.
From "Midnight in Paris" to Bond films to the 2024 Olympics — you'll recognise the bridge from the movies before your eyes confirm it.
Between Les Invalides and the Grand Palais, 75007/75008 Paris