Metal Bridge over the Aragón River in Sangüesa, Navarra (Spain)

Sangüesa was the first place where the Saint Francis rested on his way to Santiago. The saint made a bush grow next to the hermitage that dried every time the monks left the site, greening up when they returned.

Legend of Sangüesa

Zwierzyniecki Bridge over the Oder River in Wroklaw (Poland)

 

"A bridge is a meeting place . . . a possibility, a metaphor."

Jeanette Winterson

Bridge over the river Todos Os Antos in Teofilo Otoni, Minas Gerais (Brazil)

"Here I will make my Philadelphia!"

Theophilo B. Ottoni,

before the founding of this city

Nanjing Bridge crossing the Yangtze River in Nanjing, Jiangsu (China)

“Chinese people have drive and strength – we have to reach and overtake levels of advancement across the world.”

Mao Zedong

in a poster of this bridge

Nassau Bridge in Wilhelmshaven, Lower Saxony (Germany)

"Give me a woman who loves beer and I will conquer the world."

Wilhelm II

Bridge over the Bzura River near Witkowice, Mazovia (Poland)

Mazovia. Sand, Vistula and the forest.
My Mazovia. Smooth, far away -
under stems of humming stars,
under the river of pine trees.

In a poem by 

Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński

Jacques Cartier Bridge over the Saint Lawrence River in Montreal, Quebec (Canada)

 
Montréal, cette ville où le temps revêt plusieurs visages
Alors que les pneus crissent sur la piste d’atterrissage
Le temps est brumeux et la grêle tombe en rafales
Pourtant, un sourire fend mon visage : je suis à Montréal
...

From a poeme by Amélie Tremblay

Zhangchun Bridge over the Liwu River in the Taroko National Park (Taiwan)

 In a drizzly chilly spring I ponder over the subtle meaning of your silence.
Your vastness is a kind of close intimacy.
The towering mountain walls lie flat at the bottom of my heart like a grain of sand.
Clouds and fog push gently by.
Lushness revolves and pauses in moisture.
The tenderness is like breath,
like the gentle falling of a leaf, the slow flight of a bird, and the blossoming of a tree

From the poem Taroko Gorge

Chen Li

Painting of Bridges in Chicago, Illinois (United States)

“One of the hallmarks of Chicago is that we do so many things in an original manner. What other city has made a river flow backwards? What other city makes traffic flow backwards?”

Mike Royko 

about Chicago

Ponte Dom Luis over the Douro River between Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia (Portugal)

Quem vem e atravessa o rio

Junto à serra do Pilar

vê um velho casario

que se estende até ao mar

Quem te vê ao vir da ponte

és cascata são-joanina

erigida sobre um monte

no meio da neblina.

Por ruelas e calçadas

da Ribeira até à Foz

por pedras sujas e gastas

e lampiões tristes e sós

Porto Sentido
Song by Rui Veloso

Magdeburger Bridge over the Brooktorhafen Canal in Hamburg (Germany)

Hamburg - ein Hafen von heut',
Hamburg - das Tor zur Welt.
Eine stolze und mächtige Stadt,
die uns gefangen hält.
Ich seh Straßen voll Tempo und Licht,
voller Leben bei Tag und Nacht.
Doch ich kenn auch ihr Alltagsgesicht
hinter all dieser Pracht.

Hamburg 

Songtext by Freddy Quinn

Bridge crossing the Ondono Seto Straits in Kure, Hiroshima prefecture (Japan)

"Where I have chosen to live seems to have redressed the lack of it where I was born"

“Japan never considers time together as time wasted. Rather, it is time invested.”

Donald Richie,

who lived his last years in

Seto inland Sea

Yamabiko Bridge spanning the Kurobe River in Unazuki, Toyama prefecture (Japan)

"Truck train we touch

 almost bamboo 

stewed grass" 

"Blue of young leave

 and water of Kurobe 

Valley trees" 

Haikus by Eiko Miyahara 
and Mion Ishimura about Kurobe

Loschwitz Bridge over the Elbe River in Dresden, Saxony (Germany)

An der Elbe Strand
Liegt mein Heimatland,
Lieb's von ganzer Seele;
Aber meine Kehle
Ist zu Haus am Rhein,
Dürstet nur nach Wein

German song

Debilly Footbridge over the Seine River in Paris (France)

La Seine a de la chance

Elle n'a pas de souci

Elle se la coule douce

Le jour comme la nuit

Et elle sort de sa source

Tout doucement, sans bruit...

Sans sortir de son lit

Et sans se faire de mousse,

Elle s'en va vers la mer

En passant par Paris.

La Seine a de la chance

Elle n'a pas de souci

Et quand elle se promène

Tout au long de ses quais

Avec sa belle robe verte

Et ses lumières dorées

Notre-Dame jalouse,

Immobile et sévère

Du haut de toutes ses pierres

Poem by Jacques Prévert

Garabit Viaduct spanning the Truyére River near Ruynes-en-Margeride, Cantal (France)

"Can one think that because we are engineers, beauty does not preoccupy us or that we do not try to build beautiful, as well as solid and long lasting structures? Aren't the genuine functions of strength always in keeping with unwritten conditions of harmony? Besides, there is an attraction, a special charm in the colossal to which ordinary theories of art do not apply."

Gustave Eiffel, designer of the bridge

LONGEST ARCH BRIDGE IN THE WORLD FROM 1884 TO 1886

Royal Gorge Bridge over the Arkansas River in Fremont County, Colorado (United States)

“What I didn’t expect to discover, within a few short years, is that there were several bridges that were unknown to the outside world that were being constructed, mostly in China, that were actually higher than the Royal Gorge Bridge”

Erik Sakowsky,
bridge "measurer"

HIGHEST BRIDGE IN THE WORLD FROM 1929 TO 2003

Blaues Wunder (Blue Wonder) over the Elbe River in Dresden (Germany)

How many died? 
Who knows the count?; 
In your wounds one sees the ordeal; 
Of the nameless who in here were conflagrated;
In the hellfire made by hands of man

Memorial plaque about

the Bombing of Dresden 

Iron Bridge across the River Severn in Shropshire (United Kingdom)

"... a blacker cloud issued from a tower in which was a forge; and smoke arose from a mountain of burning coals which burst out into turbid flame.In the midst of this gloom I descended towards the Severn, which runs slowly between two high mountains, and after leaving which passed under a bridge, constructed entirely of iron. It appeared as a gate of mystery, and night already falling, added to the impressiveness of the scene, which could only be compared to the regions so powerfully described by Virgil."

Excerpt from the magazine 

Wolverhampton Chronicle, in 1787 

about this bridge

Coalbrookdale Bridge or Iron Bridge across the River Severn in Shropshire (United Kingdom)

 "Steel is inextricably bound up in the Western culture of violence. Cast-iron cannon cost much less than bronze and, along with muskets and steel armor, led directly to Europe's colonial expansion into the New World and Asia."

David Morse

Author of the novel The Iron Bridge 
about the construction of this bridgee