From where you stand, at the top of Plan Saint-Jude, you can see below you the Pont Vieux, one of Béziers’ oldest landmarks. It has spanned the Orb for nearly nine centuries, built on even older foundations dating back to Roman times. First mentioned in 1134, it was then the only crossing linking Provence to Toulouse, and the only bridge over the Orb for entering and leaving Béziers, giving it major strategic and commercial importance. Built in the Romanesque style, it is recognisable by its uneven arches, fifteen in total, only a few of which actually cross the river during low-water periods. This irregular shape is no accident: it responds to the whims of the Orb and to the need to adapt the bridge to its shifting currents. Modified several times in the Middle Ages and widened in the fifteenth century, it originally measured just over three metres wide. Charles VII and Louis XI already described it as a bridge “of great antiquity and great workmanship”. Listed as a Historic Monument in 1963, it is now reserved for pedestrians. As you look at it, you are contemplating a thousand-year-old structure, solid and unassuming, that once saw merchants, pilgrims and travellers pass long before us. Some even say that at dusk, the silhouettes of residents who died during the 1209 siege still wander through the mist of the bridge, trying to return to the city they were never able to defend.