Painting of a bridge over the Xishi River in Wuzhen, Zhejiang (China)

One year, there was a drought in Jiangnan and the river dried up. People fetched well water for drinking, and water was as expensive as oil. One day, the scholar Marshal Wen found an evil spirit poisoning the well, so the next day, he stayed by the well and did not let the people get water. People who didn't know the truth scolded and beat him. Desperated, the scholar jumped into the well. When the people salvaged the scholar who had drowned, they found he had poisoning symptoms. They realized he was a hero who died for the safety of the Wuzhen people.

Legend of Wuzhen

Quebec Bridge over the Saint Lawrence River between Quebec and Levis (Canada)

 The bridge question has again been revived after many years of slumber, and business men in Quebec seem hopeful that something will come of it, though the placing of a subsidy on the statute book is but a small part of the work to be accomplished, as some of its enthusiastic promoters will, ere long, discover.

Quebec Morning Chronicle, 1897

LONGEST CANTILEVER BRIDGE IN THE WORLD

Ten Holes Bridge over the Wubao Lake in Jinxi Ancient Town, Kunshan county, Jiangsu (China)

“In the spring breeze, willow branches brush gently; it’s the time for countless warblers and swallows to sing their songs. Apricots and peaches are in full pinkish bloom; the river with plentiful water winds side by side with the long dike. Beside the pontoon bridge, docked fishing boats float in the shallow waters; outside an unknown pub its wineshop sign flutters in the wind. When the misty rain veils the stream, I try to describe the beauty of the view but find myself at loss for words.”

Poem by Gao Qi about Jinxi

Midgley Bridge in Sedona, Arizona (United States)

Power spots are special places scattered around the earth. Power spots may have water that is said to heal, rocks that are said to speak to people, or fault lines that emit magnetic force. Sedona, Arizona is said to have power flow out of the earth in vortices across several landforms and is considered a sacred place.

Legend

Nine Arch Bridge in Demodara (Sri Lanka)

The construction of this bridge was given to a person called P.K. Appuhami. He completed the work within about a year and the cost of construction was so low, that the Britishers were unsure of the structural integrity of the bridge.Appuhami assured that he would lie down under the bridge on the first train voyage across this and he is said to have kept to the promise when the railway line was first commissioned.

Legend

Bridge over the Giffre River in Sixt Fer a Cheval, Haute Savoie (France)

"The valleys of the Alps are remarkable in that they are, in a way, complete. Each one presents, often within the most limited space, a kind of universe apart. They all have their own aspect, their own shape, their own light , their own particular sounds."

Victor Hugo

Sudarshan Setu Bridge between Bet Dwarkka Island and Okha, Gujarat (India)

"Delighted to inaugurate Sudarshan Setu today - a bridge that connects lands and people. It stands vibrantly as a testament of our commitment to development and progress."

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Bridge over the Dalsland Canal in Haverud (Sweden)

 


The world like a spring day, – white islands. Quiet willow and haze horizon. A grouse amid the thaw; sparrow and river.

Poem by swedish poet Gunnar Björling

Bandra-Worli Sea Link Bridge over the Mahim Bay in Bombay or Mumbai, Maharastra (India)

Bandra-Worli Sea Link not as popular as predicted. Eight years after it was thrown open, the daily average traffic on the Rajiv Gandhi Sea Link — or the Bandra Worli Sea Link — is smaller than a third of the original estimate. Data from MEP Infrastructure Developers — the toll collecting entity — shows an average of 37,336 vehicles use the sea link every day, way below the projection of 1,20,000 vehicles.

Finantial Express, March 13, 2017

Bastei Bridge in the Saxon Switzerland National Park, near Dresden, Saxony (Germany)

"From their new, adopted home they look eastwards and saw, about a day's walk away, a hill range. It had a strange, flattish profile, without any actual summits."

Lothar Kempe about 

Saxon Switzerland landscape

Old Bridge over the Tarn River in Albi, Tarn (France)

On the banks of the Tarn river in south-west France, the old city of Albi reflects the culmination of a medieval architectural and urban ensemble. Today the Old Bridge (Pont-Vieux), the Saint-Salvi quarter and its church are testimony to its initial development (10th -11th centuries).

Episcopal City of Albi

as UNESCO World Heritage Site

Lugard Footbridge in Kaduna (Nigeria)

"For two or three generations we can show the negro what we are, then we shall be asked to go away. Then we shall leave the land to those it belongs to with a feeling that they have better business friends in us than in other white men"

Frederick Lugard

Devil Bridge over the Navette Creek in La Chapelle-en-Valgaudemar, Hautes Alpes (France)

 Human nature seems to me like the Alps. The depths are profound, black as night, and terrifying, but the heights are equally real, uplifted in the sunshine.

Emily Greene Balch

Bridge in the Bernina Railway Line (Switzerland) in a painting by Edmund Welf

"Switzerland is a small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways, and is all stuck over with large brown hotels built on the cuckoo clock style of architecture.”

Ernest Hemingway

Bridge over the Blatasnica River near Babusnica (Serbia)

 "A mighty river owes its power to the little brooks."

Serbian proverb

Old Pontoon Bridge crossing the Tone River in Sano, Kozuke (Japan) painted by Katsushika Hokusai

If heaven gives me ten more years, or an extension of even five years, I shall surely become a true artist.

Katsushika Hokusai

Bandra-Worli Sea Link Bridge over the Mahim Bay in Bombay or Mumbai, Maharastra (India)

Neither by service nor fee
Come I to mine estate —
Mother of Cities to me,
For I was born in her gate,
Between the palms and the sea,
Where the world-end steamers wait.

In the poem To the City of Bombay

by Rudyard Kipling

Groszowy Bridge over the Mlynowka canal in Opole (Poland)

This bridge is my own fault
I felt locked in a cage and decided to go
Chasing freedom that I thought I've lost
I just wasn't ready to admit I was wrong
But when I tasted the new world
I found out the cage was a place I belong

Exerpt from Bridge, 

song by polish singer Dawid Podsiadlo

Menai Bridge over the Menai Strait between Anglesey Island and mainland in Wales (United Kingdom)

"The opening up of the internal communications of a country is undoubtedly the first and most important element of its growth in commerce and civilization."

By Thomas Telford, 

designer of this bridge

LONGEST SUSPENSION BRIDGE IN THE WORLD FROM 1826 TO 1834

Three Countries Bridge across the Rhine River between Huningue (France) and Weil am Rhein (Germany)

“Urban planning and architecture have a strong influence on our well-being.”

Dietmar Feichtinger, designer of this bridge

Saint Servatius Bridge over the Meuse River in Maastricht (Netherlands)

 

"On the banks of the Meuse is where I can recover. I can't do it on the Rhine, forget about the Waal. Only on the Meuse, here along the Meuse."

Dutch poet Ton Engels

La Caille Bridge over the river Les Usses between Cruseilles and Allonzier, Haute Savoie (France)

 
HIGHEST BRIDGE IN THE WORLD FROM 1839 TO 1912

Craigellachie Bridge over the Spey River in Moray, Scotland (United Kingdom)

"...Then as knowledge is my most ardent pursuit a thousand things occur which call for investigation which would pass unnoticed by those who are content to trudge only in the beaten path. I am not contented unless I can give a reason for every particular method or practice which is pursued."

By Thomas Telford,

engineer who designed this bridge

Illustration of the Triana Bridge over the Guadalquivir River in Sevilla (Spain)

Cuando paso por el puente, Triana,

Contigo vida mía,

Cuando paso el puente Triana,
Contigo vida mía, Triana,
Contigo vida mía,
Con mirarte solamente, Triana,
Me muero de alegría,
Por que tienes unos ojos, Triana,
Igual que dos luceros, Triana,
Igual que dos luceros,
Y una clase de «jechuras», Triana,
Que vale el mundo entero.

From the Sevillanas de Triana

Roman Bridge over the Passirio River in Merano, Trentino - Alto Adige (Italy)

When from the sod the flow’rets spring,

And smile to meet the sun’s bright ray,

When birds their sweetest carols sing

In all them morning pride of May,

What lovelier than the prospect there?

Can earth boast any thing more fair?

To me it seems an almost heaven,

So beauteous to my eyes that vision bright is given.

Poem by Walther von der Vogelweide, 

South Tyrol poet