The construction was somewhat of an environmental disaster. It one point, it threatened Butrint's World Heritage Site status. The ancient city is becoming a popular tourist destination. It attracts day-trippers from the nearby Greek holiday island of Corfu. Hydrofoils (30 minutes) and ferries (90 minutes) run daily between the New Port in Corfu Town and Saranda.
Many visitors from Corfu use chartered coach services to visit Butrint from Sarandë. A regular public bus service runs between Sarandë port and Butrint. Others arrive from the Qafe Bote border crossing with Greece near Konispol and cross the Vivari Channel by the cable ferry at Butrint.
Pont Saint-Bénézet
The Pont Saint-Bénézet (; Provençal: "Pònt de Sant Beneset") is a famous medieval bridge in the town of Avignon, in the south of France. It is also known as the Pont d'Avignon ().
A wooden bridge was built between 1177 and 1185. It went across the Rhône river between Villeneuve-lès-Avignon and Avignon. This early bridge was destroyed forty years later in 1226. This was during the Albigensian Crusade when Louis VIII of France attacked Avignon. In 1234 building started again for a new bridge with 22 stone arches. The stone bridge was about long and only wide. This width included the parapets at the sides. The bridge was abandoned in the mid-17th century. The arches collapsed (broke and fell into the water) each time the Rhône flooded. This made it very expensive to maintain (fix) the bridge.
Four arches and the gatehouse at the Avignon end of the bridge still exist. The Chapel of Saint Nicholas sits on the second pier of the bridge. It was built in the second half of 12th century. It has changed a lot since then. The western terminus, the Tour Philippe-le-Bel also still exists.
The bridge was the inspiration for the French song "Sur le pont d'Avignon." The bridge is an important landmark in the city. In 1995, the arches of the bridge, together with the Palais des Papes and Cathédrale Notre-Dame des Doms were classified as a World Heritage Site.
The bridge went across the Rhône between Avignon and Villeneuve-lès-Avignon. The first bridge was built between 1177 and 1185. It was destroyed during the siege of Avignon by Louis VIII of France in 1226. They started rebuilding the bridge again by 1234. Many historians think that the first bridge was made of wood or maybe a wooden structure supported on stone piers. When the bridge was built a second time, it was all made of stone. The stone bridge had 22 arches and 21 piers. Its length was . It did not run directly between the two gatehouses. It had a curved path. This was probably because of the position of the islands on the river at the time. Over the centuries the Rhône has moved across its floodplain. The position of the islands in the 13th century is not well documented. A 17th-century map shows that the southern end of the Île de la Barthelasse was upstream of the bridge. The bridge crossed small islands that were upstream of the Île de Piot. The space between the piers was between . The bridge was only in width with the parapets at the sides. The arches sometimes broke when the river flooded. They were sometimes replaced with temporary wooden structures, and after they were rebuilt in stone.
The bridge fell into a bad state during the 17th century. By 1644 the bridge was missing four arches. A flood in 1669 broke even more of the structure. After this, the other arches have collapsed one after the other, or they have been demolished. As of 2020, only four of the arches are left. The only other visible part of the bridge is some masonry from pier 11. This is attached to a private building on the Île de la Barthelasse. Remains of other piers are buried under a thick layer of sediment on the island or at the bottom of the Rhône. Piers 9 and 10 are both now on the Île de la Barthelasse. They were confirmed by cores drilled at the positions historians thought. They found masonry from the piers at a depth of below ground level. Just below the masonry, at a depth of around there were wooden fragments (small pieces). These were made of silver fir ("Abies alba"). Carbon-14 dating of this material gave dates of 1238–1301 AD for pier 9 and 1213–1280 AD for pier 10 (the range is for 2σ).
The arches are segmental rather than the semi-circular shape usually used in Roman bridges. Of the 4 arches that still exist, the largest span is . This is between the third and fourth piers. The piers have cutwaters. These are pointed both upstream and downstream. These mean there is less scour around the piers. This is one of the main problems for the stability of stone bridges. The piers were built with holes in the stone. This was to help lessen pressure from the flow of water when the river was in flood.
After the collapse of the Saint-Bénézet bridge, people crossed the Rhône at Avignon by ferry. This happened until the beginning of the 19th century. Between 1806 and 1818 a wooden bridge was built across the river. The new bridge was a few hundred metres south of the old bridge at the . A suspension bridge replaced the section across the Avignon branch of the Rhône in 1843. This was demolished in 1960 with the opening of the Edouard Daladier bridge. The section of the wooden bridge across the Villeneuve branch of the Rhône was not replaced until 1909. The replacement stone bridge, the Nouveau Pont, was damaged by bombing in 1944. It was repaired after the war but was replaced by the Pont du Royaume in 1972.
Saint Bénézet inspired the building of the bridge. He was a shepherd boy from the hamlet of Villard in the Ardèche. According to tradition, he heard the voice of Jesus Christ while he was looking after his sheep. Jesus asked him to build a bridge across the river. Although he was ridiculed at first, he "proved" his divine inspiration by miraculously lifting a very large block of stone. He won support for his project and formed a Bridge Brotherhood to help with building the bridge. After his death, he was interred on the bridge itself. This was in a small chapel standing on one of the bridge's surviving piers on the Avignon side.
The Saint Nicholas Chapel sits on a platform on the upstream side of the second pier (between the second and third arches). The bridge chapel has been restored and built again a few times. It now has two floors. Each floor has a nave and an apse. The upper floor is at the same level as the platform of the bridge. It makes the width of the walkway smaller. In this place, the walkway is only . There is a set of steps to get to the lower floor from the bridge.
The outside of the chapel shows marks of the rebuilding work. For example, there are blocked windows on the south-eastern wall. The nave is covered with stone roof tiles. These tiles rest on a series of corbels. The polygonal apse has a flat roof. It sits above the cutwater of the pier.
The lower chapel's apse is decorated with five arches. It is from the second half of the 12th century. At a later date, maybe as early as the 13th century, there was a floor supported by a ribbed quadripartite vault inserted into the structure. The simple rectangular upper chapel was consecrated in 1411. A side door was created in the lower chapel. This is because the stonework of the raised bridge blocked the original entrance. In 1513 a pentagonal apse with gothic columns was added to the upper chapel.
In 1670, after the bridge was abandoned, the relics of Saint Bénézet were transferred to the Hôpital du Pont (also called the Hôpital St Bénézet). This is within the city walls next to the gatehouse.