BORDEAUX - Banks of the Garonne : Pont de pierre and Basilic Saint-Michel

Reference : FR096

NOT AVAILABLE FOR TRADE AT THE MOMENT
Size : 10 x 15 cm

"BORDEAUX (Gironde)
Classée au Patrimoine Mondial de l'UNESCO
Le Pont de pierre et la flèche de la basilique Saint-Michel"

Location of BORDEAUX in FRANCE

Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in southwest France, with one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area at a 2008 estimate. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture of the Gironde department.

The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1 010 000 and constitutes one of the largest urban areas of France. The city is among the world's major wine industry centres. Bordeaux wine has been produced in the region since the eighth century. The historic part of the city is on the UNESCO World Heritage List as "an outstanding urban and architectural ensemble" of the 18th century.

Le pont de pierre

The Pont de pierre, or "Stone Bridge" in English, is one of the bridges in Bordeaux, which connects the left bank of the Garonne River (cours Victor Hugo) to the left bank quartier de la Bastide (Avenue Thiers).
First bridge over the Garonne River at Bordeaux, it was planned and designed during the First French Empire, under the orders of Napoleon I, but its construction took place during the Bourbon Restoration, from 1819 to 1822. During these three years, the builders were faced with many challenges because of the strong current at that point in the river. They used a diving bell borrowed from the British to stabilize the bridge's pillars. It has seventeen arches (number of letters in the name Napoléon Bonaparte). On the sides, each pile of bricks is capped by a white medallion in honor of the emperor. It also carries the coat of arms of the city (three intertwined crescents). It was the only bridge until the construction of pont Saint-Jean in 1965.

La basilique Saint-Michel

The Saint-Michel is one of the main places of Catholic worship in the city of Bordeaux in southwest France. Built in the fourteenth century to the sixteenth century, it is characteristic of the Gothic style.
The church shares with the Church of St. Andrew the particularity to be equipped with a bell tower or campanile independent sanctuary. Towering at a height of 114 meters - 99 meters under the ancien regime - it is considered the highest in the south of France and as one of the most senior of the hexagon. The base retains a crypt which long served as an ossuary, then as an exhibition for "mummies" excavated in the nineteenth century during the development of the Place Maynard, a former parish cemetery.
Historic monument in 1846, the Saint-Michel - became minor basilica in 1903 - is also world heritage of humanity by Unesco since 1998 as one of the multiple locations of the Routes of Santiago de Compostela.

UNESCO w.h.s. :
Bordeaux, Port of the Moon

Date of inscription : 2007

The Port of the Moon, port city of Bordeaux in south-west France, is inscribed as an inhabited historic city, an outstanding urban and architectural ensemble, created in the age of the Enlightenment, whose values continued up to the first half of the 20th century, with more protected buildings than any other French city except Paris. It is also recognized for its historic role as a place of exchange of cultural values over more than 2,000 years, particularly since the 12th century due to commercial links with Britain and the Low Lands. Urban plans and architectural ensembles of the early 18th century onwards place the city as an outstanding example of innovative classical and neoclassical trends and give it an exceptional urban and architectural unity and coherence. Its urban form represents the success of philosophers who wanted to make towns into melting pots of humanism, universality and culture.