Photos

Since Harilaos Trikoupis' vision when he was Prime Minister of Greece one hundred years ago, Greece had the great dream of a bridge crossing the 3 km Corinth Gulf strait.

In 2004, a long-standing dream will become reality.

The Rio-Antirio bridge (Greek: Γέφυρα Ρίου-Αντίρριου) is a cable-stayed bridge near Patra on the Peloponnese, linking the towns of Rio and Antirrio on the western mainland Greece, thus connecting with the rest of Europe.

he 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. It has a length of 2252 m (2882 m including the access bridges); as it consists entirely of five cable-stayed spans and four pylons, and it is one of the world's longest cable-stayed suspended decks. Its width is 28 meters -- it has two vehicle lanes per direction, an emergency lane and a pedestrian walkway.

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 and the probability of tsunamis, and the expansion of the Gulf of Corinth due to plate tectonics.

Its official name is the Charilaos Trikoupis Bridge. Charilaos Trikoupis was a 19th century Greek prime minister, and suggested the idea of building a bridge between Rio and Antirrio; however, the endeavour was too expensive at the time, when Greece was trying to get a late foot into the Industrial Revolution