Pont Saint-Bénézet (Pont d'Avignon)

Legend says a shepherd boy named Bénézet, guided by angels, was commanded to build a bridge across the mighty Rhône at Avignon and miraculously lifted a huge stone to prove his calling; construction began around 1177. The completed Pont Saint-Bénézet stretched some 900 metres on 22 arches, a vital crossing later used by the Avignon popes. But the Rhône's floods repeatedly smashed its arches, and after a catastrophic flood in 1668 the town gave up rebuilding it, leaving just four arches jutting into the river. Immortalised in the children's song 'Sur le pont d'Avignon', the fragment—where people danced not on but beneath the bridge, on an island—remains one of France's most beloved ruins.