Arrabida Bridge, located in Porto (or Oporto), the second largest city in Portugal and one of the main touristic destinations of this country. Spanning over the Douro River, which connects Porto with another town, Vila Nova de Gaia, Arrabida Bridge is considered unattractive by some of the locals, yet described as one of the most beautiful bridges in Europe by many visitors and reviewers.
About Arrabida Bridge:
Arrabida Bridge is the most downstream of the Porto’s Bridges, being positioned only a few km away from the Atlantic Ocean.
It was constructed by architect Perez Fernandez and imagined by designer Edgar Cardoso, the most famous bridge designer that Portugal ever had.
The construction of reinforced concrete was ended in 1963. At this moment, Arrabida Bridge had the longest arch span in the world (250 m), but it lost that title over the time. However it still ranks in top 10.
A much circulated road bridge, it sees these days an average of 136 thousand cars every single day.
Arrabida is also one of the favorite places in Porto for amateur and professional photographs.
What to se near Arrabida Bridge:
Porto is an amazingly beautiful city and the fact that its historical centre is on the UNESCO World Heritage List comes as a confirmation of this fact.
Historical bridges D Luis I (1886) and Dona Maria (1876) are the symbols of the city. Dona Maria was constructed by Gustave Eiffel, before he had built his famous tower. It is not circulated anymore but it stands as national monument.
Porto Cathedral, one of the oldest monuments in the city was built some 900 years ago and it stands today as beautiful and majestic as it did in its first years. This location should not be missed.
Clerics Church, a beautiful spiritual building in baroque style built in 1750 famous for its grandiose divided stairway and for the Clerics Tower, located behind the building and offering an amazing view of the city to the ones who make the effort to climb to the top.
Address: 4150- PORTO
[...] Cardoso (1913-2000), the best bridge engineer of Portugal, it was opened in 1963 as the concrete bridge with the longest arch in the world. Even though it lost the title, 270 meters long arch is still [...]