Ik fietste er ook maar toevallig langs, stond niet in m'n reisgids. Op het net kun je er wel een beetje info over vinden, gek genoeg niet op de officiële site's van Bilbao of omliggende gemeentes. Er schijnen nog 8 van dit soort bruggen te bestaan, o.a. in Duitsland en GB. Over deze brug vond ik de volgende informatie:
http://www.norbiton.com/ukdave/bilbao/18transporterA.htmquote:
About 15kms north of the city centre is the Great Biscay Transporter Bridge, connecting the districts of Portugalete and Getxo. This was the first of many transporter bridges built around the start of the 20th century and this one was designed by Palacio, a mate of Eiffel. It was the Guggenheim of its day, proclaiming to the world the wealth and modernity of Bilbao. Although not the largest of its type (that's in Newport, south Wales) the walkway across the top is open to pedestrians and the view is impressive.
There's something about transporter bridges that fascinates people. Less than twenty remain, all but one in Europe, and a society exists for enthusiasts - towns lucky enough to have one forge fraternal links and visit each other's bridges regularly. France has half a dozen such bridges and Britain three: at Newport, Middlesborough and Warrington. The Bilbao example is still very much a working bridge crossing every few minutes, and the 'gondola' you can see above carries its passengers in relative luxury, for a small charge
en
http://geoimages.berkeley.edu/wwp904/html/InakiRezola.htmlquote:
The Bizkaia Hanging Bridge ('Puente colgante de Bizkaia', more widely known as "Puente de Portugalete") that connects Portugalete and Getxo is about 10 kilometers away from downtown Bilbao.
It is a rather particular bridge in this that it connects as much as it disconnects. I mean, that the two banks of the Nervión river that lies below it were extremely different : whereas the Left Bank was mostly working-class, heavily industrialized and populated, and quite disgraceful from an aesthetical point of view (its formerly little towns had boomed up suddenly and chaotically when the metal industry settled up), the Right Bank was something of a little paradise on Earth where the rich bosses of the Left Bank workers and the powerful bourgeoisie of Bilbao lived. Nowadays such differences are somehow smaller, but both banks keep anyway their particular flavour.
The bridge itself is a beautiful representative of the flourishing european industrial architecture at the end of the XIXth century. Nowadays there are 7 other similar bridges in the world (three of them in Europe), but this one was the first to be constructed. The bridge was built between 1890 and 1893, and was the first of its kind. It was designed by A. de Palacio, a friend of Eiffel. As it was seriously damaged in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, it took its final look after reconstruction in 1941.
Baskenland, en met name Bilbao, kan ik absoluut aanraden als vakantiebestemming, zeker ook vanuit fotografisch oogpunt.