Crossing the River Tarn

Back in the medieval times, the city of Albi was a very important town. People from all over would be coming here for trade and other pursuits. It helps that Albi was also an episcopal city and it was highly developed at the time. France was in the middle of a bridge building boom and Albi was no exception. There was the river Tarn here which can only be crossed by ferry. Obviously, this was a bottleneck since there is a limit on how much the ferry can carry at a time. Because of bridge fever, plans were drawn up to build a bridge which crosses the River Tarn.

The money from the ferry partially funded the bridge and soon the bridge became another source of income for the town. The tolls imposed on visitors who wish to cross the river became a source of revenue once again. These days there are no more tolls for pay to cross the bridge. It was January when I visited and from the looks of it, the River Tarn looks cold but calm. I have a hunch that it wasn’t that calm back then and hence another reason to build the bridge. The bridge can be crossed on foot now. There are road markings on the bridge but I didn’t see any vehicles crossing it at the time. For a bridge to be that old and still be in use, it is another amazing fact about the Pont Vieux.

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