The Rhion Antirrion Bridge

The Rion-Antirion bridge is the World's longest multi-span cable-stayed bridge. It crosses the Gulf of Corinth near Patras, linking the town of Rion on the Peloponnese to Antirion on mainland Greece.
 (Rhion-Antirion Bridge))

Its official name is the Harilaos Trikoupis Bridge, after the statesman who first envisioned it. Harilaos Trikoupis was a 19th century Greek prime minister who suggested the idea of building a bridge between Rion and Antirion; however, the endeavour was too expensive at the time.

The 2,880m-long bridge dramatically improves access to and from the Peloponnese, which could previously be reached only by ferry or via the isthmus of Corinth at its extreme east end. Its width is 28 m - it has two vehicle lanes per direction, an emergency lane and a pedestrian walkway. Its five-span four-pylon cable-stayed section of length 2,252 m is the world's second longest cable-stayed deck; only the deck of the Millau Viaduct is longer at 2,460 m. However, as the latter is also supported by bearings at the pylons apart from cable stays, the Rion-Antirion bridge deck might be considered the longest cable-stayed "suspended" deck.

This bridge is widely considered to be an engineering masterpiece owing to several solutions applied to span the difficult site. These difficulties include deep water, insecure materials for foundations, seismic activity, the probability of tsunamis, and the expansion of the Gulf of Corinth due to plate tectonics.

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And now for a very different kind of bridge, every bit as functional as the one above but perhaps with a slightly more homely feel to it. But, who knows, it might outlast the Rhion Antirrion, as some of these living bridges have already lasted hundreds of years!

For those of you curious to learn more about these bridges, which, paradoxical though it may sound, are both natural and man-made, they are known as root bridges and are to be found around Cherrapunjee in the north-eastern corner of India.