Paris - Seine Bridges

The Seine bridges were scheduled by UNESCO in 1991 as international cultural monuments. Most of them are to be the subject of extensive restoration work by the end of the millennium.

Within the city of Paris the Seine is spanned by 36 bridges, 13 of them in the central area providing links to and between the Ile de la Cité and Ile Saint-Louis. These are the city's oldest bridges; those farther upstream or downstream mostly date from the 19th century. The bridges of medieval Paris served as promenades and meeting-places where people could gossip and do business. They were lined with shops, with the owners' living quarters above them. Then in modern times, when the bridges became important as traffic arteries, the old shops and