Pont Alexandre III

This guide to the Pont Alexandre III in Paris opens in 1896, when Tsar Nicholas II laid the first stone of a bridge named for his late father, sealing the Franco-Russian alliance in bronze and stone. It follows engineers Jean Résal and Amédée Alby as they solve an almost impossible brief: a single flat steel arch wide enough to keep the view down the Champs-Élysées open. Along the way it points out the gilded Fames atop the four pylons and the copper nymphs facing each other over the water. Look up at those figures as you cross — each one stands for something the bridge was built to prove.