Pont du Gard – France
A piece of history, this bridge was built between 40 and 60CE and stretches 902 feet over the Gard River in France. It is the highest aqueduct in the Roman times at 164 feet and one of the wonders of the ancient world. It supplied water to the city of Nîmes for 5 centuries. It winds between the two cities, over 50 km long through the mountains.
The aqueduct was built with unbelievable precision and is a true marvel of engineering. It was built entirely with dry materials, without the need of any masonry. The Pont du Gard is strikingly beautiful thanks to its elegant forms and natural surroundings that have hardly shown any signs of suffering from the past 20 centuries. This is one of the most visited French monuments every year.
Slaters' Bridge - Cumbria
This bridge crosses over the River Brathay in Cumbria. It was built in the late 1700’s century.
The bridge is made of arch and slab and used to be on a route which pack-horse used to carry slates from quarries in the hills. The arch stones have a length of up to 4.3ft long. Because of its width of only 4.2ft,
Kintai Bridge - Japan
An all-wood construction bridge, the Kintai Bridge of five arches is made from Japanese zelkova, pine, cypress, chestnut, and oak.
The bridge was constructed in 1673 and renovated in 1950 when the arches were deteriorating. The arches look to be floating up from their solid stone base. Kintai in Japanese means ‘gold brocade sash’.
Ponte Vasco da Gama - Lisbon
Europe’s second longest bridge is this steel bridge which crosses the shallow but wide Tagus estuary to bypass Lisbon. The cable-stayed main soak is 1,378 feet and its full length is 7.67 Miles. The base of the Vasco da Gama extend down 95 meters into the bedrock while the pillars were reinforced to support winds of 155mph.
The architects of the bridge have said that it could withstand an earthquake 4 times the strength of the 1755 earthquake.
Confederation Bridge - New Brunswick
Like many other bridges across Europe, this bridge is also referred to as the “Devil’s Bridge” because it is said that only Satan could create such a magical or dangerous bridge.
It is one of Canada’s most impressive engineering constructions and the longest bridge in the world to cross over ice-covered water. It took just a mere 1.3 billion dollars, four years and five thousand workers for its construction.