BRIDGE OF EUROPE

The excellence of the funambulesque finesse of the Bridge of Europe, as well as the bridge of the A 71 which precedes it when one comes from the centre of Orléans is of an incomparable rejection… Hardly an overview, it can only bend your eyes and forever in you, it is kept. Unforgettable by its drawing, by far the deck seems an angel wing listening to the heavens and the Loire. Designed by Santiago Calatrava, this great Spanish architect sketched numerous watercolours to find this unique line: a bow-string arch bridge! In this way, the slightly inclined apron suggests that it is taking flight and invites it to cross the bridge in one direction or another on foot, horse or car. Our vision is thrilled by this construction of 378 metres long established by three spans whose main - that of the middle - of 201,60 metres is suspended to this famous arch with 28 pairs of cables. With the two other spans measuring each of 88,20 metres opening and closing the whole, the architect and the masterpiece (the Départementale departmental management) have been able to preserve and value this symmetrical equivalence representing for centuries in the history of French architecture a unique mastery of unparalleled mastery. With a total length of 470,60 metres on both sides the addition of the access works, it opens south towards Saint-Pryvé-Saint-Mesmin and north towards Saint-Jean-de-la-Ruelle and Orléans. We are still waiting for the completion of the so-called'triangle'project where a garden was to be built and a lighthouse built. At night, it had to illuminate the bridge, which undoubtedly would have accentuated the finesse and majesty of the place.

In their time, in the 1870 s, Gustave Curd and Claude Monet peignirent Le Pont de l'Europe, which overlooks the Saint-Lazare station in Paris. When a great painter to dedicate that of Orleans?