Ancient bridges over the Loire in the Touraine area, bridge in France

The ancient bridges over the Loire in the Touraine area are three Roman wooden bridges: the Fondettes bridge between La Riche and Fondettes, and the Ile Saint-Jacques and Ile Aucard bridges at Tours, then Caesarodunum. Each had a wooden deck about 7 m wide carried on oak piles driven into the riverbed; today only rows of eroded stumps emerge at low water.

Two of the three wooden bridges were built in the 1st century, under the Early Roman Empire: one west of Tours on the Poitiers–Le Mans road, between La Riche and Fondettes, the other in the heart of Caesarodunum. A third, further east at Tours, was built in the 3rd century, before the city withdrew behind its walls, and replaced the first two, which were dismantled. Repairs make the chronology uncertain; by the late 6th century all had probably disappeared, and no fixed bridge is known at Tours before the early 11th century.

The three crossings are known by local names: the Fondettes bridge, the Île Saint-Jacques bridge and the Île Aucard bridge. Two of them linked Caesarodunum to the Poitiers–Le Mans road and to the Orléans–Angers route on the right bank. Their oak piles now surface only in low-water periods, so sightings depend on the river's mood.

The three bridges are submerged most of the year; their oak piles show only during pronounced low water, a regime more frequent since the late 20th century. One lies between La Riche and Fondettes, the other two at the Île Saint-Jacques and Île Aucard in Tours. Most vestiges of one were deliberately destroyed in 1987, so look for the surviving alignments.

The three crossings were only identified around the turn of the 21st century; before that, how the Loire was crossed in antiquity was unknown. Most of the remains of one of them were deliberately destroyed in 1987. The piles are oak, and each deck was about 7 m wide, enough for vehicles.