Puente Nuevo Spain

Legendary

120-meter tall bridge connecting the city of Ronda

Photo by F Delventhal

The first bridge built on this spot lasted six years. In 1741, it collapsed into the gorge and killed about 50 people.

The town of Ronda waited nearly twenty years before trying again. When they did, they built something that would never fall.

Ronda sits on a high limestone plateau in southern Spain, and a river called the Guadalevín has sliced it in two. The canyon it carved, El Tajo, is about 120 meters deep and only about 68 meters wide at its widest point.

For centuries, the old Moorish town and the newer market district on the other side were connected only by a long, winding road far below. Two earlier bridges existed, but both crossed lower down.

The first attempt to span the gorge at full height came in 1735. Architects built a single-arch bridge in about a year, and it wasn't strong enough.

Construction of the current bridge began in 1759, designed by Domingo Lois de Monteagudo. This time the plan used three arches stacked on top of each other, with the whole structure anchored into the canyon walls.

Work went slowly. Monteagudo built the bottom third by 1778, then progress stalled until José Martín de Aldehuela took over in 1785 and finished it in 1793.

The bridge rises 98 meters from its base and stretches 66 meters across. The stone was quarried from the gorge itself, so the bridge looks as if it grew out of the cliffs.

There's a room hidden above the central arch. Over the years it served as a guardhouse and a prison, and during the Spanish Civil War, prisoners were reportedly thrown from its windows.

Ernest Hemingway wrote about that in For Whom the Bell Tolls. Today the room holds a small exhibit about the bridge's construction.

Walk across the bridge and lean over the railing to look straight down. Then hike the Camino de los Molinos from the old town down to the river to see all three arches towering above you. Go back up for sunset, when the gorge and bridge turn gold.