The single-arch medieval bridge over the Nervia is the postcard image of Dolceacqua, and the reason most visitors come. Built in the fifteenth century to connect the older hillside quarter — the Terra — with the newer Borgo on the opposite bank, it has a span of about 33 metres in pale grey stone, the curve rising elegantly over the brown river water. Monet painted it twice in 1884.
The best vantage point is the Borgo side, looking up at the bridge with the castle ruins behind. Walk across it on foot — no cars are allowed — and continue into the old town up the stepped Via Castello. At dusk the bridge is floodlit; in summer the swallows fly low over the river beneath it.