1. Órbigo Bridge (León)
It is one of the most beautiful fords of all the Ways of Santiago and the most novel. The bridge of the honorable passage , as it is known, was the scene of the deed carried out by the Leon knight Don Suero de Quiñones in 1434 (which was Holy Year), when he was placed on the bridge with his assistants and challenged to break three spears to any gentleman who wanted to cross it from 15 days before until 15 days after the Santiago festival. Historians agree that the bridge over the Órbigo has Roman origins and that much of the stone factory we see corresponds to the work carried out in the thirteenth century.
2. Bridge of the Donadas, Montoro (Córdoba)
The Donadas Bridge, which helps save the Guadalquivir River, has its history. It was built in 1498, according to popular tradition, with the effort of the men of the town and the money obtained from the jewels donated by their women, hence the name. Another of its curiosities is that it is built with molinaza stone, a sandstone of nearby quarries with a characteristic reddish color from which almost all the religious and civil buildings of Montoro the Andalusian "Toledo" are made.
3. Roman bridge of Niebla (Huelva)
They say that de Niebla is one of the best preserved Roman bridges in Spain. It has nine arches and helps to save the Tinto river, on whose banks this city rises, which was the capital of an extensive Muslim kingdom that extended to Portugal. Through it passed one of the imperial roads that, according to Antonine's Itinerary, departed from Italica. The most Roman and less modernized arches are those of the east end, in half a point and with large segments.
4. Medieval bridge of Frías (Burgos)
A popular song says that Frías has three things that drive Castilla crazy: its castle, its women and the Vinillo de la Roa. We should also add its beautiful bridge over the Ebro, of Roman origin and greatly expanded and improved in the Middle Ages. It is built with limestone tuff, like the rest of the town, and measures 143 meters long supported by 9 pointed arches. It was also the Middle Ages when the haughty pentagonal tower was added with bumpy projections that defended the transit through the ford.
5. Bridge of San Urbez (Huesca)
If we go up the Bellós River along the winding HU-631 road that departs from Escalona, in the heart of the Pyrenees, within the limits of the Ordesa National Park, we will find a stone bridge thrown in an impossible way over the narrow and deep gorge that The river carved in this Pyrenean area. If we stick to the legend, the bridge was created miraculously by a hermit, San Urbez, supporting his staff between the two banks given the impossibility of the human engineering of the moment being capable of such a technological feat. But no matter how miraculous the saint was, the truth is that it was Romanesque stonecutters who built this small but delicious stone ford, suspended even today, many centuries later, on an unfathomable precipice.
6. Bridge of Camprodón (Girona)
If you enter the Ripollés by the Pyrenean skirts you have to schedule a stop in Camprodón, cradle of the composer Isaac Albéniz. The classic image of the town is the medieval bridge over the riverbed of the Ter, glossed in canvases and poems of all kinds and times, but within the stony warp of Camprodón, other landmarks worth visiting are also preserved, such as the porticoed Plaza Mayor, the houses hanging on the Ter or the modernist villas that rich Barcelona landowners were built here in the early twentieth century, when the first golden age of rural tourism began.
7. Roman bridge of Mérida
Someone defined it as "Hispanic Rome", a somewhat pompous term. Although well thought out, Emerita Augusta, former capital of Lusitania, current capital of Extremadura, has enough elements to consider, if not a miniature Rome, at least one of the great European cities of Antiquity. It was ordered to be built by Emperor Augustus on the banks of the Guadiana in the year 25 a. C. to give land and home to the licensed legionaries (emeritus, hence the name of the town) who had fought in the northern campaigns against Cantabrians and Asturians. One of the first constructions of the city was the magnificent bridge over the Guadiana that runs through 60 arches and whose solidity and elegance still impress today.
8. Cangas de Onís Bridge (Asturias)
They call it the puentón or the Roman bridge of Cangas de Onís, although in reality it is of medieval times, from the times of Alfonso XI of Castile (16th century). Its large central arch is one of the symbols of Asturias. The original, which was Roman, served the road that led to Portus Victoriae (the current Santander). It was in service until well into the 19th century.
9. Puente la Reina (Navarra)
Another of the emblematic bridges of the Camino de Santiago and all of Navarra. That also gives name to the town in which it sits: Puente la Reina. The bridge was ordered by a queen (it is not known whether Doña Mayor, wife of Sancho el Mayor or Doña Estefanía, wife of García el de Nájera) and saves the Nájera river with six original airy arches from the 11th century. It is one of the most interesting Romanesque civil engineering works in Spain. Even today it helps hundreds of pilgrims to Santiago to cross this Navarrese river every day.
10. Old Bridge of Sant Joan de les Abadesses (Girona)
It is also known as Pont Vell, Old Bridge, and gives access to this town from Girona since the twelfth century. The Ter River passes under its large pointed arch. In 1428, an earthquake damaged it and had to be rebuilt. And in 1939, during the withdrawal of the Republican army, he was dynamited to prevent the advance of nationals. In 1976 it was rebuilt faithfully, according to its old Gothic appearance.
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