Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Greek Golden Gate Bridge


One of the most impressive bridges of Europe, and definitely the most impressive in Greece, is just a five minute walk from my house. I like to call it “The Greek Golden Gate Bridge” as it became a symbol for city of Patras and whole Greece (You will not buy any souvenir without the bridge, even the fridge magnet) like the original Golden Gate Bridge is for San Francisco and US.
I see it several times everyday, but yet, it's not so easy to take a good photo of it! I was lucky for one sunset to have a cloudy sky, perfectly red sun and quite good clarity of air (very rare for Patra area).
The official name of the bridge comes from Charilaos Trikoupisis, 7-time greek prime minister from 1875 to 1895, who was the first one to bring up the idea of connecting Peloponnese with inland Greece (he was also the one to come up with the idea of rack railway from Diakopto to Kalavryta). Casual name, used in everyday life, is just Rio-Antirio bridge.


 
It's 2880m long (at the moment of construction was the longest cable-stayed deck in the world) and 28m wide, the structure is held on 4 main pylons, where the highest one is 164m tall. It is designed to hold to earthquakes, so common in this area. It's a part of new network of national motorways in Greece, connecting Athens and Patra with Ioannina and Igoumenitsa. It was inaugurated on August 7th, 2004, just one week before 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.

Photo details: NIKON D70s, Manual, f 1/7.1, 1/400s, -0,3EV, f=40mm (for 35mm), GIMP software

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