In the often bare and dry landscape around the Verdon you will find many old connecting routes. Of these, only old bridges are often preserved. Many are mistakenly called Pont Romain (Roman Bridge). Today, these constructions are often far away from modern traffic routes and where nature is well preserved. The bridge presented here has the advantage that it is close to a small road and is therefore much easier to reach than those widely scattered bridges on old mule tracks.

The Asse stream consists of several sections with several old bridges, and there are also several in the municipality of Blieux. The one presented here is in the valley that leads directly to Blieux, just before the hamlet of Plan d'Asse.

Site history

The limestone region around the Verdon and the foothills of the Alps were always very sparsely populated. The traffic routes consisted long of mule tracks, which ran on the easier sides of the valley and over the lower passes. In the valleys, however, streams and rivers often flow here with a very irregular discharge behaviour, in flat areas there are often local floods during thunderstorms. So the construction of massive stone bridges to guarantee the crossing of people and animals began very early on.

Since the bridges were often built by the local population, there are hardly any documents that document the reason and the year of construction. Most of the bridges with finely worked stones were built at the beginning of the 19th century, i.e. before the many roads were built to the last villages. This bridge here is probably older because Napoleon crossed it on its way to Paris in 1815. Today's Route Napoléon runs in the main valley.

Access by public transport

There is no public transport connection to the valley.

Access by car

We are basically north of the Verdon River. Blieux is located in a short side valley of the main axis of the Route Napoléon between Castellane and Senez. We are therefore also north of Castellane and the Col des Lèques saddle.

At the height of La Tuilière we follow the sign Blieux 7km. The D21 road is often only one lane wide and leads over several bridges. After a somewhat tighter right turn, we keep an eye out for a forest road that leads down to the river bed on the left. There is also a signpost here for hikers to Taulanne.

Parking site

We either stay at the top of the road or drive down the forest path after checking the condition.

The bridge is just down the river.

Description

The bridge stretches slightly diagonally across the stream that meanders in this section of the valley. Viewed on a larger scale, the bridge lies at right angles to the course of the valley. Here the former mule track coming from the north bank and from Blieux crossed the water. It continued along the south bank and higher directly to Taulanne, without having to make a detour through the marshes at La Tuilière. Today passes a hiking trail here.

It consists of a wide arc of finely worked stones. The masonry above is coarser. The missing wall crown and part of the damaged bridge deck were renovated in 2018.

The Asse river

The Asse is a stream with particularly pure water. If you look closer and below the surface of the water, you will find small oblong capsules that are a little longer than 1cm and are made of small stones. These are the structures of the caddis fly larvae. You can also find other dwellings of insect larvae, worms and freshwater snails.

If you walk a little along the shore, you will find nice picnic spots on the shore opposite the road.