Place des Quinconces

This guide to Place des Quinconces in Bordeaux starts with a disappearance: in August 1942, the bronze dragon-horses reared above this fountain vanished overnight, carted off under German occupation orders meant for the furnace. You'll hear about the sculptors who cast them to guard the square the way real animals might guard a harbor, the allegorical figures of a blacksmith, a lion and trampled vice beneath their hooves, and the tidal Garonne a few streets away that shaped the whole design. The fountain stood empty for years, its basin dry, while the horses' fate stayed unknown.